I'M STUCK! Gmail Reader > OpenAI Assistant > Get List Item > Google Sheets Writer

[Russ]

Project Overview:

Here’s what I’m trying to do, in a nutshell (I’ve spent HOURS trying to figure this out):

I want to send emails to a Gmail address, have OpenAI process the emails, parse out implicit and explicit tasks/calendar event information (Day, Time, Event Name), send that information to a Google Spreadsheet, and then turn each row into a Google Calendar event.

The OpenAI node sends the list of extracted implicit and explicit calendar event items to a Get List Item node.

And lastly, the Get List Item node sends each calendar event item to a Google Sheets Writer node. One or more calendar events could be extracted from the email body by the OpenAI node.

I haven’t even tried to extract information from the spreadsheet and create Google Calendar events with it. I need to tackle getting the correct information into the spreadsheet first.

Here’s what I currently have set up and what I’m seeing:

I created a video to show you what I have set up in case my explanation below, doesn’t make sense: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCeZ9Qbewb0

I have the Gmail Reader set to be a trigger. The “email_bodies” output is connected to the “prompt” input at the top of the OpenAI Assistant node. That is currently a gray dashed line.

I have selected the correct OpenAI Assistant in the OpenAI node (Here’s what I currently have set up for the instructions and JSON schema: OpenAI Assistant Instructions - Google Docs). I have the OpenAI node output going from “response” output to “list” input for Get List Item node. There is a red message, “Types do not match! Single value does not equal list,” in the middle of the red dashed line. Loop Mode is turned on on the Get List Item node and turned off on the OpenAI node.

I have “item” output for Get List Item node connected four inputs on the Get Sheets Writer node. The four inputs are the column header names (Event Name, Date, Time, and Processed).

I’ve been using Grok to help me work through this. It’s done a pretty good job compared to every other AI I’ve tried (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini). However, I don’t know how good it is because I’m still stuck.

I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. There are probably other nodes that I’m supposed to use, but I don’t know what those would be.

[Shrikar]

Do you mind sharing the content of the email and also share your workflow?
Just a sample anonymized email will work too.

[Shrikar]

Here is an example workflow: https://www.gumloop.com/pipeline?workbook_id=1xhPScmzyw5U5TQHLHfDRq

Google Sheet: Invites - Google Sheets

Email:

Here is the list of events that I need to attend

1. Goto USPS : March 1 2025, between 10 and 10:30am
2. Meeting with Andrew: March 2nd 2025, between 11am and 12pm.

[Russ]

Since I posted that to the forum, I’ve gone a different direction that ALMOST works: https://www.gumloop.com/pipeline?workbook_id=tbPQ47BbEGAXLTrCenqCQA The only problem right now is that every time an event is created, it’s either in the past (usually 2023) or it’s in the future but off by a week or two. I have no idea why it’s doing that. An example email might be “I should call mom soon and I need to set up a meeting with John to talk about the marketing project.” That’s a very simple version. An email might be really long and complicated though. There might be 10 explicit or implicit calendar events inside the text that need to be extracted with AI.

[Wasay-Gumloop]

Hey @Russ - I don’t have access to view the flow but I watched your video (thank you for sharing that by the way). I think you’re very close however I can see a few issues with your flow:

1. The Get List Item node is not needed here. Since you’re not fetching a specific item from a list there is no need for it here. The OpenAI Assistant node is also not outputting a List which is why you’re seeing the type mismatch error.

2. Instead of the Get List Item node you want a node that can extract the specific data fields you need (ie. Event Name, Time, etc). You can use the Extract Data node for that.

@Shrikar Shared a workflow above which should work in your case (huge thank you Shrikar for helping out!).

And as for the type mismatch error you were seeing that is because the Get List Items node expects a list however you’re passing in Text - the data types are not compatible here. More on that here: https://docs.gumloop.com/common_errors/type_mismatch

Also, note for future readers: While ChatGPT/Grok/Claude can help you plan your flow they don’t have knowledge about how nodes function within Gumloop and how the node parameters work. This can lead to an endless loop of confusion. Instead I’d recommend using Gummie (AI Chatbot in the workflow builder) which not only has context to how Gumloop works but also your pipeline. If you’re still stuck then of course you should reach out here

[Russ]

Thank you. I’ll try again. On an unrelated topic, how do you clear the cache of a node?

[Wasay-Gumloop]

You can simply disable Cache Response on the node/subflow:

[Russ]

At this point, I’ve rebuilt the entire flow and made sure the caching is turned off from the beginning and every calendar event that is created ends up back in 2023 for some reason. I don’t know where in the prompts it’s getting 2023. https://www.gumloop.com/pipeline?workbook_id=tbPQ47BbEGAXLTrCenqCQA

[Wasay-Gumloop]

Can you share the run link from the https://www.gumloop.com/history page please? I need to look at the actual run in order to see what’s going wrong.