My mom had been complaining about how I had no time for her, so I promised to wish her good morning everyday. Then, my friend automated it
I love my mom, and there’s no doubt about it. But, then there are days — with those early meetings or those late mornings, or days where I just have so much on my plate that I can’t spare time for my over-loving mother.
I can’t blame her though for wanting to know if her son loves her and is doing alright. Frustrated after one such argument, I shared my worries with Abhishek Balaji.
‘I keep forgetting to ping my mother. I promised her that I’d wish her good morning everyday. I should just set a reminder, right?’
‘Why! Just automate it. Simple.’ he says.
Note: The workflow app is available only on iOS; Apple owns it. You could probably do a similar thing on android using these apps.
Stick around for a bonus at the end of the article ;)
Steps for a happier mother:
- Download and set-up the workflow app. Click here to download it. Workflow is basically a personal automation app that helps you create powerful macros. This is just one use case for the app; with over 200 actions, there’s plenty you could automate.
- Open the app and click the + symbol on the top-right corner. You can build different types of workflows; in this case select ‘Action Extension’.
Check out the other stuff I come up with: www.nowshoing.com
- From the ‘Actions’ tab long press on the ‘Text’ option (use the search bar if you have difficulty spotting it) and drop it in the ‘Workflow’ tab. Enter the message you want to send every time you run the workflow in the textbox.
- Then from the ‘Actions’ tab choose ‘Set Variable’ and add an identifier. Now choose ‘Send Message via Whatsapp’ and add recipient.
- Add the app’s widget to your today tab or add a shortcut to your home screen. You can add a custom icon to the workflow in ‘settings’ as well.
- Run the workflow and voila, whatsapp opens with your message pasted in the text-input box ready to be sent.
See, easy-peasy! You could go a step further by attaching an image retrieved from unsplash to the message. Better yet, have the top 5 or 10 images retrieved so you can pick the one you want to send out. (To do this, add the stock image website’s RSS feed to the workflow then set the chosen image to a variable and send the image to whatsapp.)
Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to, this workflow could’nt be set to run at a specific time everyday since Apple does not allow background processes to run for apps (according to Abhishek). So thats two clicks until the message is sent — one on the shortcut and another click to send the message.
Bonus: Add this workflow to add the current playing song to a specific playlist. In this case I’m adding it to my public playlist on Apple music.
For the things you can do with this app, this really is just the tip of the iceberg. I’m waiting for the cool workflows you guys come up with; don’t forget to send them over. Go on now…say ‘hi’ to your mom :D
I work for HasGeek so it’s pretty obvious that I’m surrounded by geeks. But, Abhishek is the biggest of them all. He is usally spotted by an over-sized cup of coffee with his head behind a screen. Also, you’ll have to consider his Amazon order history to accurately calculate his net worth. Tweet to him @booleanbalaji
