Automatic Weekly Recaps with Workflow on iOS
I posted my first Weekly Links Recap a few days ago as a way to share some interesting articles I’ve come across during the week that I may not have had time or enough opinion on to give their own blog post. When I first had this idea it seemed like a lot of work to find the link, grab the excerpt (or provide my own blurb), put it into a draft post in my blog and remember to always post on Fridays – I figured that sooner or later I might find the effort not worth the reward.
As a nerd, programmer and loyal iOS Workflow user I knew there had to be a better way to accomplish this & I was right! To give a bit of background, before I owned an iPhone, I was a loyal Android of almost 7 years and I had automated a lot of daily activities using Tasker, a phenomenal app that let you perform a set of tasks based on triggers or contexts. When I found out about Workflow on iOS, it was an instant purchase and it definitely has more than $4.99 worth of functionality. Due to the nature of iOS it is not as powerful as Tasker, but what it is able to do still boggles the mind.
![Share Links to Dropbox Screenshot](https://mattdonders.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/FullSizeRender-3-1024x758.jpg)
In order to accomplish this automation I built two separate workflows. The first one (and the more complicated of the two) I call Share Links to Dropbox and it’s steps are as follows –
- Store the URL & Text as INPUT
- Grab the URL from INPUT
- Store it as URLINPUT
- Grab the Text from INPUT
- Store it as TEXTINPUT
- Use the Get Article from Web Page action
- Store the article as URLARTICLES
- Use the Get Details of Articles > Title action to get the Title of the Article
- Store as URLTITLE
- Check IF URLTITLE = URLINPUT
- If True Choose from Menu (Manually Input Text or Use Article Excerpt)
- When a workflow accepts both Text & URL, if no text is elected the Get Text from Input also returns the URL. This allows me to enter my own excerpt / blurb.
- If Manually Enter Excerpt is chosen, Ask for Input and store that in URLEXCERPT
- If Use Article Excerpt is chosen, use the Get Details of Articles > Excerpt action and store that in URLEXCERPT
- If False, store TEXTINPUT into URLEXCERPT
- If True Choose from Menu (Manually Input Text or Use Article Excerpt)
- Get the Current Date
- Use a custom Date Format of w to get the week number
- Store that as WEEKNUMBER
- Format all variables into Markdown formatted text for my blog
* [URLTITLE](URLINPUT)
> URLEXCERPT - Pass the above Text into the Append to Dropbox File action with the following parameters –
- Mode: Append
- File Path: Apps/iOSWorkflow/WeeklyLinks_W<WEEKNUMBER>
- Make New Line: Yes
That may seem like a lot of steps, but it covers all use cases for sharing. If I want use what Workflow assumes to be the excerpt of the article I can do so, if I want to select another part of the article to be the excerpt I can do that, or if I want to supply my own custom blurb I can do that as well.
While the Share Links to Dropbox workflow is a bit complicated (and contain 34 steps) the workflow that actually creates the post is much simpler at a grand total of 5 steps! That workflow is called Create Weekly Links Blog Post and it’s steps are –
- Get the Current Date
- Use a custom Date Format of w to get the week number
- Store that was WEEKNUMBER
- Get the Current Date
- Use a Date Format of Long
- Store that was POSTDATE
- Use the Get Files from Dropbox action with the following parameters (matching the Append to Dropbox File action from the first workflow) –
- Show Dropbox Picker: Off
- File Path: Apps/iOSWorkflow/WeeklyLinks_W<WEEKNUMBER>
- Error If Not Found: Yes
- Pass that file into a Post to WordPress Action with the below parameters –
- Title: Weekly Links Recap * <POSTDATE>
- Type: Post
- Format: Standard
- Status: Draft
Instead of having to remember to run the Workflow at 7AM on Friday mornings, I setup a Launch Center Pro notification action that allows me to automatically run that workflow from a notification I receive at that time. Once I am fully awake for the day and have some downtime at, I will do a quick proofread of the post and publish it to my blog.
I am sure that my workflows are by no means perfect, but so far they get the job done and probably save me a lot of time and headache. This time savings and versatility will allow me to keep this series of weekly recaps going without any hassle.