Twice a day

Summarise a shared mailbox for the team

Twice a day your team sees a sorted summary of what arrived in the shared inbox.

Runs: Twice a day
Apps: Outlook
AI: Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access: Mail.Read.Shared

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: at 9am and 2pm, summarise new emails in our support@ shared mailbox grouped by topic and post it to #support in Slack.

Paste it into your assistant. It tells you what it will send or change before it runs live.

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First time? Adding ClickRuntime to your assistant takes about two minutes.

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A support team of six shares a mailbox such as help@ or orders@, and everyone assumes someone else has handled the new messages. Messages are answered twice or not at all, urgent ones wait while people deal with simple ones, and the manager has no overview of what arrived overnight. Customers complain about slow replies, though the team is busy all day.

Twice a day, new messages in the shared mailbox since the last run are collected, and ClickRuntime's built-in AI groups them by topic, such as delivery issues, billing, returns and sales enquiries, flags the urgent ones, and writes a short summary. The digest is posted to the team's Slack channel before each shift starts.

It suits support, sales operations, facilities and HR teams that share an inbox.

What you get out of it

Everyone starts with the same picture
The digest in Slack shows the whole team what is waiting, so people choose tasks deliberately instead of guessing what is untouched. That reduces duplicate replies. That reduces confusion and wasted effort, and helps new colleagues find their feet more quickly.
Urgent items rise to the top
A customer reporting a failed delivery or a payment problem is flagged in the summary. The team deals with it before routine questions, which limits the damage from delays. Customers with real emergencies get help earlier, and routine questions are handled right after that.
Managers can see patterns
Grouping by topic shows that twelve messages are about the same delivery problem. That tells you to fix the cause or post a notice, and not just keep answering individually. That insight is often invisible to people working through individual messages one at a time.
Handovers between shifts are smoother
The morning digest tells the day shift what came in overnight, and the afternoon one covers the day. Nobody needs to scroll through the mailbox to catch up. Whoever opens the digest first on a new shift knows immediately what happened before they arrived.
Customers are not forgotten
With a regular overview, messages that nobody has replied to stand out. Fewer customers have to write a second time to ask if anyone saw their first message. That consistency shows up in customer satisfaction, which is the real measure of a support team.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Twice a day, ClickRuntime gathers the emails that reached your shared Outlook mailbox since the last digest, so nothing is counted twice.
AI groups them by topic, such as billing, bugs and sales, with one line each, and flags anything urgent.
The digest is posted to your #support Slack channel, with the mailbox name and number of new emails at the top.

Before it runs live

Connect Outlook

What you get

RunsTwice a day

Summarise a shared mailbox for the teamtoday, 9:00Succeeded

Slack · #supportsupport@northwind.com – 17 new Urgent: Acme can't log in since this morning Billing (4): refund requests, one VAT question

Build your own

Need it to work differently?

This template is a starting point. Copy the prompt and change it, or describe a different automation from scratch, with your own conditions, more apps or an AI step. Your assistant writes it, tests it and runs it on ClickRuntime.

Your own rules
Conditions, thresholds, filters and exceptions, written the way you'd explain them to a colleague.
Any number of apps
One automation can read from one app and update several others. Over 248 apps are ready, and anything with an API works too.
AI where it helps
Summaries, classification, extraction and drafts use ClickRuntime's built-in AI, with no extra key.
On a schedule or on each event
Runs as often as every 5 minutes, or the moment an app sends an event, and keeps track of what it already handled.

Changes you can ask for

Run it at a different time, more or less often, or only on weekdays
Change what the AI looks for, or how it writes the result
Add another app, for example also send it to Slack
Combine it with other Outlook steps into one automation

Under the hood

The code that runs this automation

This is the Python script that runs each time the automation starts. Your AI assistant writes it for you when you send the prompt, and you allow each step in your assistant. To change how the automation works, describe the change to your assistant and it updates the script for you. For every function it can use, see the script reference.

shared_mailbox_ai_digest.pyexample

from datetime import datetime, timezone
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, http, state, ai, notify

SHARED = "support@northwind.com"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    since = state.get("since") or datetime.now(timezone.utc).strftime("%Y-%m-%dT00:00:00Z")
    msgs = http.get(f"https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users/{SHARED}/messages",
        headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.connection('microsoft', 'work')}"},
        params={"$filter": f"receivedDateTime gt {since}", "$orderby": "receivedDateTime asc",
                "$select": "subject,from,bodyPreview,receivedDateTime", "$top": 100}).json()["value"]
    if not msgs:
        return {"messages": 0}
    text = "\n".join(f"- {m['from']['emailAddress']['address']}: {m['subject']} – {m['bodyPreview'][:200]}" for m in msgs)
    digest = ai.generate(text, system="Group these emails by topic (billing, bugs, sales, other) with one line each. Flag anything urgent first.", max_output_tokens=500).text
    notify.slack(f"*{SHARED}* – {len(msgs)} new\n{digest}", channel="#support")
    state.set("since", msgs[-1]["receivedDateTime"])
    return {"messages": len(msgs)}

FAQ

Common questions

Does the digest tell me who is handling each message?

It summarizes what arrived and groups it by topic. Assignment depends on your team's own process, though the digest can mention whether a message already has a reply from someone in the team. The digest also notes when a message already looks answered.

Which mailboxes does it work with?

Shared mailboxes in Microsoft 365 that the connected account can read. The account needs access to the mailbox, usually through Full Access or delegate permission, which an administrator can grant. An administrator can grant that permission in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Can it run more than twice a day?

Yes. The schedule can be set to match your shifts, for example three times a day, or hourly during peak times. More frequent digests are shorter, because they cover fewer messages each. Most teams match the schedule to their shift pattern.

What permissions does it need?

Mail.Read.Shared. Nothing else in your accounts is used.

Does it need AI?

Yes. It uses ClickRuntime's built-in AI, so you don't need an OpenAI or Anthropic key. Every plan includes a monthly AI allowance.

How many runs does it use?

One run each time it runs (twice a day). Checks that find nothing to do and stop right away aren't counted.

Can I change how it works?

Yes. Describe the change to your AI assistant, for example a different schedule, channel or filter. It updates the automation, tests it and tells you what changed.

On a scheduleAI