A shutter maker's AI schedule check caught 6 visits with impossible drive times
1 · What happened
In one week it caught 6 sales appointments whose drive times didn't work and suggested a revised schedule, plus an installation stop missing from the calendar and a route that couldn't fit its time slot. The owner hasn't measured time or money saved yet (owner's own report).
These numbers come from the builder and haven't been checked independently.
21-person shutter manufacturer and installer (Ryan Murray, @SMB_RealEstate) · Oct 2026 · Source: x.com ↗
2 · How it works, in plain words
An automated check compares the sales and installation calendars with drive times, posts problems to Slack with a suggested fix, then reruns after the office team corrects them.
3 · Setup steps
How to do it yourself
Our suggested steps. The company didn't publish theirs.
- 1
Pick the schedule mistake that costs you most (late arrivals, double bookings, missing jobs).
- 2
Give an AI agent read-only access to your calendar and job list.
- 3
Schedule the check for the evening before, using the prompt below.
- 4
Send problems to the person who fixes the schedule, in the chat tool your team already uses.
- 5
Count late or missed visits each week before and after.
4 · The prompt
The instructions to give the AI
Paste this into Claude (the free plan is enough to try it), swap the [brackets] for your details, and test it on a few real examples.
This is one part of the setup. It won't connect to your phone, inbox or other apps on its own; the steps above cover that.
Agent instructions (prompt)
Each evening, check tomorrow's appointments in [calendar]. For each salesperson and installer, estimate the drive time between stops with [maps tool] and flag: back-to-back visits that can't be reached in time, jobs in [job list] that are missing from the calendar, and routes longer than the time booked. Post each problem to [Slack channel] with the appointment, what's wrong and one suggested fix. Don't move, cancel or message customers yourself.
[Highlighted] = replace with your own details before you run it.
What you should get back: An evening Slack message like: 'Tue 10:00 and 10:30 visits are 40 min apart; move the second to 11:00.'
Written by Quickly and Good, inspired by this case.
More detail: tools, prices and what you'll need
The company used: Claude / Viktor agents + Slack
You could use: Claude or Viktor + Google Calendar + a maps tool + Slack
- Claude
AI assistant for writing, analysis and long documents; can connect to your tools.
Free plan; Pro $20/mo (monthly) · Official site ↗
Prices from each tool's own pricing page, checked Oct 2026.
What you'll need
- ☐Shared calendar with API access
- ☐A maps or drive-time tool
- ☐An AI agent tool (Claude, Viktor or n8n)
- ☐Slack or Teams for alerts
Can I do this myself?
Possible if you are comfortable wiring tools together and testing for a week or two. If not, hire a builder: most owners do.
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