Hi folks,

I’m fairly confident this is an issue with my Zap configuration and not Zapier itself. What am I doing wrong here?

The purpose:

I manage a Google Sheet that is used to sign up for events, some of which are months away. The Zap is intended to email a reminder about the event that a person signed up for to that person one week before the event. Before then, people can add or remove their name from an event as they please.

The problem:

The Zap I made sends the email just fine; however, sometimes it sends duplicate copies of the same email to the person simultaneously -- the most I’ve seen was 8 copies of the same email.

The inputs:

The sheet contains the following information in separate columns:

• COL$A: Date of event (date)
• COL$B: Name of event (text)
• COL$C: Event location (text)
• COL$D: Event time (time)
• COL$E-G (unmerged): other descriptive fields (text)
• COL$H: Name and email of person claiming event (text) eyes, I know, not optimal but I’m stuck with it -- see Zap notes for processing details]
• COL$I: Name and email of person responsible for event (text) (same note as previous item]
• COL$J: Date that event must be claimed by (date) (4 days before event date]

The Zap:

1. Trigger: New or Updated Spreadsheet Row in Google Sheets triggering on changes to COL$H
2. Format Date/Time: Combines COL$J and COL$D to create a datetime value
3. Filter: Only continues if COL$H contains @ character (i.e. if someone has signed up)
4. Filter: Only continues if COL$J is (date/time) After Zap Meta Human Now]
5. Delay by Zapier: Delay until Step 2 value] -3d
   1. *Delay action is set to always continue when date is in the past
   2. Note that the maximum Zapier can hold a task is for 1 month. If the date passed into the Delay Until field is greater than 1 month from when the zap triggered, it will error out.
6. Format Text: Extract email address from COL$H
7. Format Text: Extract email address from COL$I
8. Format Text: Extract pattern a\w+] from COL$H (essentially, first name)
9. Format Text: Extract pattern a\w+] from COL$H (essentially, first name)
10. Send Email in Gmail:
    1. To: lStep 6 value]
    2. CC: lStep 7 value]
    3. Subject: “Upcoming Event Reminder: COL$B @ COL$C”
    4. Body: contains references to fStep 8 value], pStep 9 value], COL$A-COL$E, and COL$J.

Thoughts? Let me know if any additional information is needed.