There are many free website monitoring sites that lets us do this job. But they are only trial version or come with some limitations. For example Pingdom lets you track only one website and offers only 20 SMS alerts for a free account. So why not build your own website monitoring service? Google Docs helps you do this. I recently came across an article in Digital Inspiration where Amit had demonstrated how to use Google Docs to monitor your website and get email alerts for free. So I thought why not extend the script to allow Google Docs to send you free SMS alerts too when your site is down. Also the current script was supporting the ability to monitor only single site, you had to create mutiple copies to track many sites. So I have also updated the script to support monitoring of many sites with a single doc itself.
Get free SMS alerts for new and important emails on Gmail with Google Docs
How to Use Google Docs to Monitor Multiple Sites and Get Free Downtime SMS Alerts
Google Calendar will be aiding Google Docs to send free SMS notification when site is down. Whereas the actual monitoring is done by Google Docs.
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Configuring Google Calendar for Phone Notification
1. Log in to Google Calendar
2. Click on the Gears icon on the top right and select settings.
3. Now click on the Mobile Setup tab.
4. Select Country, enter your Phone number and now click Send Verification Code. Now enter the code you got on your mobile and verify your number. If you don’t receive the code check if your carriers fall under supported mobile providers.
5. Now in Notifications select SMS as your default notification channel and save it.
Now you are done with the Google Calendar configuration part. All that is left is to copy the Google Docs provided below and set the polling frequencies.
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Configuring Google Docs To Monitor your Sites
1. Log in to Google Docs
2. Click here to make copy of the Google Spreadsheet.
3. In F3 to F6 cell you can enter the URL of the sites you want to monitor. Currently supports up to four sites. You can tweak the code to support many more.
4. In cell F8 enter your Email Address into which you want to get alerts. Entering phone number is not required as it will be picked up from Google Calendar.
5. Now select Tools-> Script editor.
6. Select Resources-> Current script’s triggers. Under Run select “isMySiteDown” then in Event select Time-Driven, Minutes timer and Every minute and save it. Now click the Authorize button and then Grant Access. Save the trigger again.
Now on Google Docs will be polling and monitoring all the sites you have entered every minute. You will be getting SMS alert, Email alert when any of the mentioned site is DOWN, the exception/error details will be logged in ‘C’ column and URL will be logged in ‘B’ column helping you identify which site was actually down. Similarly you will be getting alerts once the site which was DOWN is UP again.
If you are interested you can find the source code here. Feel free to modify and tweak it.
So, go ahead and try it out, monitor multiple sites Uptime for free with Google Docs. Did it workout for you? Have any suggestions? Found any bugs? Do report it!
Here is a way of obtaining SMS alert from gmail.com using Google Calendar
http://gmail2sms.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-to-get-sms-notification-of-new-mail.html
Thanks for the link. I recently wrote an article explaining the same but it’s kind of simpler because it does not involve downloading SDK’s and deploying the application. It just uses Google Docs scripting ability
Do check it out.
Get Free SMS alerts on receiving new email on Gmail
I’m happy to read your blog
how can i set up google docs to send me mobile notification ( SMS ) for when there is a change in one of my doc. Like, i have submission for and when someone submits something with that form, i would like to get sms notification to my mobile. Is this possible?
@farey
Yes, it is very much possible. Here’s how to do it.
Set up mobile notification in Google Calendar as mentioned in the article.
1. Go to the concerned Google doc(Form) then select Tools-> Script editor. And paste the below code and save it.
function sendsmsonformsubmit(e)
{
var subject = “Contact Us Form Submitted”;
CalendarApp.createEvent(subject,
new Date(now+20000),
new Date(now+20000)).addSmsReminder(0);
}
2. Now Select Resources-> Current script’s triggers. Under Run select “sendsmsonformsubmit” then in Event select “From spreadsheet” then “On form submit” and save the trigger.
3. Save the script again.
That’s it. You will be getting a SMS notification when someone submits that form. Hope it was useful.
Cheers!
Hi Shunmugha Sundaram, in script editor when i try to save it, it says illegal character in line 4. What seems to be this?
Farey,
Problem is with double quotes. This usually happens when we are copying pasting the code from web. Just remove the quotes surrounding Contact Us Form Submitted and manually type in double quotes. Then save it you should not be getting any error.
Hello, Thanks for your great tip. I still have error as “ReferenceError: “now” is not defined. (line 8)”… can you please tell me how to fix it?
Sorry about that farey! Here is the updated version. Replace double quotes manually as you did before.
function sendsmsonformsubmit(e)
{
var now = new Date().getTime();
var subject = “Contact Us Form Submitted”;
CalendarApp.createEvent(subject,
new Date(now+20000),
new Date(now+20000)).addSmsReminder(0);
}
Hi,
Thanks for providing such a wonderful trick. Was looking for such from past few days. Thank you very much.
Regards
Henry
Techglimpse.com
Thanks. Welcome here Henry Sukumar!
I’ve made some improvements to your code/spreadsheet. Thanks for your hard work improving the original script! http://agileadam.com/google-docs-uptime-monitor
You are most welcome. Happy that my effort did not go waste
Checked your script, looks great.
Hi, wonderful work man, I love it,
I was wondering instead of it checking the website, is there a way I can have it send me email & SMS when for example Cell B18 is greater than lets say 10 or cell B18 changes.
Thanks
Thanks zit. Here we go. I have create a sample spreadsheet to demonstrate the requirement you asked for. Make a copy of it and set the trigger (Tools-> Script Editor then Resource-> Current Script Triggers->From Spreadsheet , On Edit. Then change your email id and set up Google Calendar as per instructions in the article.
Get Email, SMS alerts when a Spreadsheet cell is modified via Google Apps Script
Do share the article. Cheers!
Thanks man your script works way I described it
but I had to make some modification
I don’t want it to send me everytime it is greater than 10
so I changed formula to
if(value=10)
and I have one problem, script only works if I change the value manually but clicking into the cell.
in Cell B18 I have formula
=if(B15>3,”10″,”9″)
so if B15 is greater than 3 than B18=10 then I want script to send me email.
Plz help me fix this.
Thanks alot
You mean two conditions should be satisfied in order to get an email? B15>3 and B18=10 rite?
We can use nested if to check it. I have updated the same spreadsheet, do check it.
If you found this article useful, do share and like it
I am wondering if there is any way that it can be possible, like i have google docs “form submit” link at the bottom of every blog post ( blogger ) and when visitor clicks that link, “submit form”, it will take to form submission page and i want post title to be automatically fetched into one of the field in submission form. Is it possible? any help will be highly appreciated.
Farey,
I suggest you to use ImportXML. Trying fetching the title tag and assign it to the field.
XML Parsing tutorial: https://developers.google.com/apps-script/articles/XML_tutorial
Thank you for your suggestion. But since i have very less knowledge on xml and html, i could not understand the concept. can u explain it or get me the codes plz.
Hello there,
Thank you very much for this great article
It’s really very useful for me. I have some questions please :
1-Why does it show MY email address in the SMS message? It doesn’t show the sender’s or the editor’s address.
2-Is it possible to shorten the date format a bit? So that I can see more of the actual content in the message?
3-Regarding the chart limit of 119 I think I have WAY Less limit, can this be caused by arabic letters in the message?
Thanks very much!!
hello Shunmugha Sundaram
my problem.. not getting sms alert.
i did all ur points stepwise. i get message of 1 line into my gmail inbox from the senders email address. iam using url address of the firm in the google docs script section. shud i use email id of sender instead?. Iam not getting the messages got into my gmail account, as sms to my mobile ?.where am i wrong, i dont know. i assure u, i have not missed any of ur points while doing settings.
Ajit,
You are trying to get alerts for emails rite? Then the article you should refer is this:
http://techawakening.org/free-sms-alerts-new-email-on-gmail-with-google-docs/1130/
I am having a great time with ur above script for email alert on mobile.
But suddenly today it is not giving any alert for any email
can i knew what may be wrong with it?
I really need very urgently to solve this problem
Thanks in Advance
Regards
Rohit
thanks for the reply. i now get the email to inbox to sms alerts correctly.
Welcome. Do share the article if you liked it
Please somebody help me monitor my Server IP(ping monitor) instead of website monitoring.
Thank in advance
Have you tried replacing host name with just IP in the code?
no, i viewed the source code i look like fetching the url , i thought i might not working
can you help me out pls..
Try replacing directly with ip for example for Google it is http://74.125.236.38/
Is it compulsory to use step 3 in configuring google docs?
I skipped that step and the sms alert for emails is not working.
Please help.
Step 3 in the sense? Could you be more clear because there are two sets of instructions. Which one do you mean ?
Step 3 in “Configuring Google Docs To Monitor your Sites”.
Please elaborate this step.
Shall we enter URL of gmail? ie, https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox ?
Ashish,
Are you trying to get SMS for an email or to get alerts when your site is down?
I am trying to get alert for an email.
Then please refer this article:
http://techawakening.org/free-sms-alerts-new-email-on-gmail-with-google-docs/1130/
Hi,
I have tried your article but it doesn’t work for me. The is:inbox filter says it will not match anything. I tried on a single email address but what happens is the filter that I created seems to be applied at first but then it is removed. It makes me wonder whether google has blocked it for our Google Apps domain.
Francis
Try the filter in:inbox . As far as I know there is no such restriction in place.
Thanks for the reply. It’s working now. I think it was just a carrier issue with my Telco provider. I have yet to try the in:inbox label. I’ll check it out and see what happens.
Francis
Welcome
Please do share the article if you liked it.
Hi Sundaram
Thanks, just one word for your tip – Awesome!!!
Though its working fine for me but had just one issue – I am getting 2 SMS alerts every-time a new email arrives.
Any fix for that.
Please help,
Tons of thanks in advance.
Welcome Sid. Do share the article
Yes, I am looking into that issue.
Hi,
i am not getting the verfication code on my mobile phone. I am fromm delhi and using MTNL
Supported mobile providers : http://support.google.com/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=37226#I
Awesome! Was looking for something like this, thanks. One doubt I have is, does it affect the site performance in any way? Like if the load on the server and traffic is high putting the server at risk, can this monitoring, crawling or however it works, make it worse even if just a tiny bit?
Thanks!
Welcome. No. Because it’s just a request made to get the response code which tells if your site is up or down
Do share this article if you liked it.
Hi Shunmugha and every one
I have read and tried setting and thing seems working ok, but I always get sms twice (the second one comes in few min apart).
If i create calendar event manualy, I get only one sms as it should be.
I did compare those events, every thing was set the same.
Would someone help me?
thanks
Did anyone know how to add notification in some special calendar not the personoal a new one. like SENDSMS calendar.
I am working on it. Will update the code soon.
sorry trying to post on http://techawakening.org/free-sms-alerts-new-email-on-gmail-with-google-docs/1130/
Hi,
Nice script, and thanks for this blog. I want to monitor some IPs, can this script to monitor IP?
Thanks
George,
Welcome! If the IP is reachable over the internet, certainly you should be able to. And do share this article and like this blog if you found it useful
Hi,
I search over the internet how to modify this script to monitor a public IP but I don’t find anything and I don’t have scripting knowledge. Maybe when you have time you will modify this script to work whit IPs.
Thanks!
George,
Ya for sure! Meanwhile please do share this article on social networks
Ok,
Thanks!
HI,
I do get an SMS (2) when website id down, but when the site is UP i don’t get any SMS.
Can you please help me with this weird behaviour