Every hour

Summarise new Google Docs into a sheet

Every new document in your folder gets a short summary added to a Google Sheet, with its title and link.

Runs: Every hour
Apps: Google Docs, Google Sheets
AI: Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access: Docs/folder shared with service account; Sheets only the sheets you pick when connecting

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every hour, summarise any new Google Docs in my Shared Reports folder and add the title, link and summary to my Docs Index sheet.

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 team writes reports, briefs and meeting write-ups into a shared Drive folder. After a few months there are hundreds of documents with vague titles, and finding the one about a specific client or decision means opening them one by one.

A sheet with a short summary of each document turns the folder into something you can scan and search. New documents are added within the hour, so the index stays current without anyone maintaining it.

What you get out of it

Find documents by what they say
Searching the summary column finds the document about "Contoso pricing" even if it is titled "Notes v3". That saves opening a dozen files to find the right one.
Catch up on a folder in minutes
A manager returning from leave can read a column of summaries instead of every document. They know what changed and which few to read in full.
An index nobody has to maintain
Shared indexes usually go stale because updating them is someone's extra job. Here each new document is added automatically, so the index stays accurate.
Works with how the team already writes
Nobody changes where or how they write. People keep saving documents to the same folder, and the summaries appear alongside.

How it works

What happens, step by step

Every hour, ClickRuntime looks in your chosen Google Drive folder for documents it has not seen before.
If there are none, it stops there until the next check.
For each new document, it reads the text and AI writes a short summary.
The title, link and summary are added as a new row in your Google Sheet, and the document is remembered so it is never summarised twice.

Before it runs live

Connect Google Docs
Connect your Google Sheets account and pick the spreadsheets it may use

What you get

RunsEvery hour

Summarise new Google Docs into a sheettoday, 9:00Succeeded

Google Sheets · Docs IndexQ3 Contoso renewal notes · Contoso wants a 2-year term with a 5% discount; legal review due 28 Oct; Northwind pricing used as benchmark.

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

Act only on the items that match your own rules, and skip the rest
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 Google Docs and Google Sheets 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.

summarise_new_google_docs_into_a_sheet.pyexample

from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from clickruntime import on_trigger, credentials, state, ai, report_fetched

FOLDER_ID, SHEET_ID = "your-folder-id", "your-spreadsheet-id"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    creds = Credentials(credentials.connection("google", "work"))
    drive = build("drive", "v3", credentials=creds, cache_discovery=False)
    seen = set(state.get("seen") or [])
    files = drive.files().list(q=f"'{FOLDER_ID}' in parents and mimeType='application/vnd.google-apps.document' and trashed=false",
                               fields="files(id,name,webViewLink)").execute().get("files", [])
    new = [f for f in files if f["id"] not in seen]
    report_fetched(len(new))
    if not new:
        return {"summary": "Nothing new"}
    docs = build("docs", "v1", credentials=creds, cache_discovery=False)
    rows = []
    for f in new:
        body = docs.documents().get(documentId=f["id"]).execute()["body"]["content"]
        text = "".join(r.get("textRun", {}).get("content", "") for b in body for r in b.get("paragraph", {}).get("elements", []))
        summary = ai.generate(f"Summarise in 3 sentences:\n{text[:8000]}", max_output_tokens=200).text.strip()
        rows.append([f["name"], f["webViewLink"], summary])
        seen.add(f["id"])
    build("sheets", "v4", credentials=creds, cache_discovery=False).spreadsheets().values().append(
        spreadsheetId=SHEET_ID, range="Index!A:C", valueInputOption="USER_ENTERED", body={"values": rows}).execute()
    state.set("seen", list(seen))
    return {"summarised": len(rows)}

FAQ

Common questions

Does it summarise documents that are edited later?

By default it summarises each document once, when it first appears. It can be set to re-summarise a document when it changes, which suits living documents.

How long are the summaries?

Three sentences by default. You can ask for a different length or format, such as three bullet points or a one-line description plus key decisions.

What about very long documents?

Only the first part of a very long document is summarised, which usually covers its purpose and main points. Splitting large reports into sections gives better summaries.

What permissions does it need?

Docs/folder shared with service account; Sheets only the sheets you pick when connecting. 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 checks. Checks that find nothing new 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.

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