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Every 10 minutes

Flag and summarise emails from your VIP list

Emails from anyone on your Excel VIP list are flagged in Outlook and you get a short summary of each, so important messages never wait.

Runs
Every 10 minutes
Apps
Microsoft Excel, Outlook
AI
Yes, uses the built-in AI allowance
Access
Mail.ReadWrite, Files.Read

Send this to your assistant

Create a ClickRuntime automation: every 10 minutes, check my Outlook inbox for new emails from anyone in the VIPs table of my Excel workbook. Flag each one, and email me a one-line AI summary with what they need.

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

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

Why use it

Why teams use this automation

A managing director gets two hundred emails a day. Messages from the top ten clients, the bank and the board matter far more than the rest, but they look the same in the inbox and sometimes sit unread for a day.

Keeping the VIP list in Excel and flagging their emails as they arrive, with a short summary, means the important ones are seen first.

What you get out of it

  • Important emails seen first

    Messages from the people who matter are flagged as they arrive.

  • Know what they need at a glance

    A one-line summary says what each VIP is asking for.

  • An easy list to maintain

    Add or remove VIPs in an Excel table; an assistant can keep it up to date.

  • Works with your existing inbox

    Nothing moves; VIP emails are simply flagged in Outlook.

How it works

What happens, step by step

  1. Every 10 minutes, ClickRuntime reads your VIP list from the Excel table.

  2. It checks your Outlook inbox for emails that arrived since its last check and matches the senders against the list.

  3. Matching emails are flagged in Outlook.

  4. AI writes a one-line summary of what each VIP needs, and the summaries are emailed to you.

Before it runs live

  • Connect Microsoft Excel
  • Connect Outlook

What you get

RunsEvery 10 minutes
Flag and summarise emails from your VIP listtoday, 9:00Succeeded
Email · VIP emails2 VIP emails Dana (Acme Holdings): needs the signed renewal by Friday. Northwind Bank: asking to move Tuesday's review call to 3pm.

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 Microsoft Excel and 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.
vip_email_triage_from_an_excel_list.pyexample
from clickruntime import on_trigger, report_fetched, http, credentials, ai, state, notify

def graph(method, path, **kw):
    r = http.request(method, "https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0" + path, headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {credentials.connection('microsoft', 'work')}"}, **kw)
    return r.raise_for_status() or (r.json() if r.content else None)

BOOK = "/me/drive/items/your-workbook-id/workbook"

@on_trigger
def run(event):
    since = state.get("since") or "2026-01-01T00:00:00Z"
    msgs = graph("GET", "/me/mailFolders/inbox/messages", params={"$filter": f"receivedDateTime gt {since}", "$orderby": "receivedDateTime",
                 "$select": "id,subject,from,bodyPreview,receivedDateTime", "$top": 50})["value"]
    if msgs:
        state.set("since", msgs[-1]["receivedDateTime"])
    vips = [str(r["values"][0][0]).lower() for r in graph("GET", f"{BOOK}/tables/VIPs/rows")["value"]] if msgs else []
    hits = [m for m in msgs if any(v and m["from"]["emailAddress"]["address"].lower().endswith(v) for v in vips)]
    report_fetched(len(hits))
    if not hits:
        return {"summary": "No VIP emails"}
    lines = []
    for m in hits:
        graph("PATCH", f"/me/messages/{m['id']}", json={"flag": {"flagStatus": "flagged"}})
        need = ai.generate(f"{m['subject']}\n{m['bodyPreview']}", system="In one line, say what this person needs.", max_output_tokens=60).text.strip()
        lines.append(f"{m['from']['emailAddress']['name']}: {need}")
    notify.email_me(f"{len(hits)} VIP emails", "\n".join(lines))
    return {"vip": len(hits)}

FAQ

Common questions

Can I add whole companies?
Yes. Put a domain such as @northwind.example in the list and everyone from that company counts as a VIP.
Where does the summary go?
To your email by default. It can go to an assistant instead, who can act on it.
Does it read my other emails?
It checks the sender of each new email, and only reads and summarises those from your VIP list.
What permissions does it need?
Mail.ReadWrite, Files.Read. 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.

Set up “Flag and summarise emails from your VIP list” from your assistant

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