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Hi,

I created a Zap that sends to a single recipient via SMS when a Google calendar entry is deleted or cancelled. That’s fine. I’m trying to use this same principle and same trigger, but have the workflow gather the small list of SMS recipients (say, from a Google sheet), and deliver the same variable-filled message (from the calendar event) via SMS. It seems like this would be a straightforward thing, but it’s not. Can anyone suggest a solution? I have a Twilio registered number.

Hi @SwimOut Admin 

How many SMS recipients would you have?

 

GSheets has these 2 Zap actions available:

 

I suspect around 10 to 20 total recipients.

 

But again, I need the trigger to be the removal of a calendar event, take the recipients from a list, and then send to Twilio for the message delivery with variable substitution in the SMS text from the calendar event (e.g., CANCELED: Event starting at xx:xx time on xx date).

Hi @SwimOut Admin 

Try using the Looping app to handle the multiple attendees from the GCal Event: https://zapier.com/apps/looping/integrations

 

There is a possibility that this may work, but I admit I’m a novice at Zaps. How would I utilize the looping element in the zap I use that currently has Google calendar event cancel as a trigger and send sms as the action? 

@SwimOut Admin 

Help article for how to use Looping in Zaps: https://zapier.com/help/create/other-functions/loop-your-zap-actions

Looping is used to handle multiple line items (1+).

Looping would be step 2 in your Zap.

In your use case, it would be used to handle the variable number of recipients for a canceled GCal Event.

Troy,

I appreciate your assistance and suggestions with this. I added the loop as step 3, because when I added it as step 2, it wanted the trigger as the loop input, not the action. Anyway, although the loop action as step 3 shows in Zap that it succeeds, it never sends. I wonder if the looping is possible through this method. I hope that it is, but I’m not sure if it can work the way it needs to. The reason is the whole action of Send SMS via Twilio has to be repeated with a different phone number, not just the telephone number. The Twilio API itself can only accept one number per submission.

@SwimOut Admin

Please post screenshots with how your Zap steps are configured, thanks.

 

Zap Steps

  1. Trigger: GCal - Event Cancelled
  2. Action: Looping
  3. Action: Twilio - Send SMS

Before…

After…

 

@SwimOut Admin 

Can you post screenshots with how each Zap step is configured?

 

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