Send SMS and app notifications at a specific time specified in a column

[Sheldon_Lee-Wen]

I have a table that has a list of notifications I want to send via SMS and through the app. There is a column that specifies the date [Alert Date] and one that specifies the time [Alet Time] that each one needs to be sent. The entries into that table are created by a BOT at 6am UTC every day, so it has all of the notifications I want to send for the day.

I then created another bot to actually send the notifications. I have an event that triggers on when a new row is added to that table. Its process that will send the alert, send the SMS and then delete the corresponding row. That works.

I want to update that process so that each one is only sent at the time specified in the table. I tried adding a “Wait for a condition” where [Alert Time] = TIMENOW() but it doesn’t seem to work. Am I going about doing this in the right way?

Thanks in advance!

[Markus_Malessa]

Wait for condition in conjunction with a Date/Time column comparing to the current time does not function that way. There was some talk to maybe incorporate a ‘timer’ but that has not yet occurred either to my understanding.

Sheldon_Lee-Wen:

There is a column that specifies the date [Alert Date] and one that specifies the time [Alet Time] that each one needs to be sent. The entries into that table are created by a BOT at 6am UTC every day, so it has all of the notifications I want to send for the day.

I am not sure why you go through the trouble of creating these rows in a table, then send out a notification based on these rows, and then delete these rows after the notification is sent. Wouldn’t it be a lot simpler to use the logic that determines if the row needs to be added in the first place to just send the notification at a designated time each day? I am not sure that Appsheet currently is set up to be able to handle notifications at a specific time that is set within a column, you may have to look at setting multiple daily schedules at each hour that you want and then filter your notifications table that only those are included that fall within the current hourly range.

[Sheldon_Lee-Wen]

Ah, got it. Thanks.

I did that b/c the way the source entries are setup, requires some calculation to setup an alert. i.e. The value entered in the source table is Do this x times per day, starting at this time. (It’s a setup for administering prescription medication.) So I do some logic to generate all of the times that this needs to be done. Sounds like I do need a bunch of bots then, one for every hour (so possibly 24 of them) to do this.

Having some sort of timer you can set based on table values that then can be used to trigger a bot / process / task or action would be really helpful. I found an appsheet Reminders sample app, but it only works on days, weeks or months, not at specific times of the day. How would one go about building an alarm clock type app in appsheet? I wonder if it’s even feasible/possible.

[Steve]

Sheldon_Lee-Wen:

I wonder if it’s even feasible/possible.

Not really.