Recipe - Send Reminder Text To People On Schedule

Skill level: Beginner

Organization: One Life Christian Church

Requires Rock: 1.9.0

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This is how I setup an automatic text to go out whenever a reminder email was sent out.  This mainly uses Zapier so it's important to setup a zapier account first.  

 Step 1:  Setup a Zapier account

  • they offer a free “starter” plan for nonprofits allowing you to do more complex ZAPS
  • https://zapier.com/non-profits/


Step 2: Create a unique email address for schedules

I used our free office 365 account and made an email: schedule@*ourwebsite*.com


Step 3: Edit the “system email” titled “scheduled reminder email”

  • Add your newly created email as the Cc
  • Place stars (**) on either side of text you want to isolate. I did it like this:

            **{{ attendance.Occurrence.OccurrenceDate | Date:'dddd, MMMM d, yyyy' }}**

            **{{ attendance.Occurrence.Group.Name }}**


Step 4: Create an excel sheet on office 365 (or you can probably also do this with Google Sheets)

  •  Create 3 columns
    • Email
    • Cellphone
    • First Name

Step 5. Create a ZAP with zapier

  • Trigger: I used my NEW EMAIL with Office 365 as my trigger but I’m sure you can use GMAIL if desired
    • I have it process all emails to my /inbox.
  •  Filter: Only continue if…
    • (body preview) (text- contains) (scheduling reminder)
  • ACTION: Formatter by Zapier
    • I used the “text” option
    • Transform: Split Text
    • Input: Body Preview (which shows the text of the email)
    • Separator: **
      • This is from the previous step to isolate the text that I want to be able to pull
    • Segmented Index: All
    • My example above led to 5 different items. I mainly want to use Item 2 & Item 4. But this may be different if you have a different setup.
  • SEARCH: Excel
    • Find Row
    • Options:
      • Folder: Root (or wherever you saved the online sheet)
      • Spreadsheet: *Name of file*
      • Worksheet: *Sheet that has the columns setup*
      • Lookup Column: Email
      • Lookup Value: Step 1 Trigger “To Recipients email”
  • ACTION: Twilio
    • Send SMSTemplate
    • From Number: *Number you want to send from* I might eventually create another excel file that I search for the “group” for and find the group leader and pull their info over to this section
    • To Number: From step 3 Cellphone
    •  Message: Hey (Step 3 First Name), just a reminder you’re serving in (step 2 Item 4) on (step 2 Item 2). Login to *shortlink for their schedule toolbox* for more info. Thanks!


I hope someone might find this helpful.  I'm sure there is a better more technical way to do this.  But with my limited knowledge this is the way I got it to work.