I Built My Sister-in-Law a Casting Management System with Google's Suite + Claude

I built another AI tool for someone close to me — this time, my brother's wife.

She's an influencer, but besides taking her own brand deals, she also helps companies recruit for theirs. Sometimes it's straightforward online sponsorships, sometimes it's live events. Either way, she used to have to manually compile the info of every KOL and show girl who applied, then turn it all into slide after slide of a deck. Each applicant's details and experience, pulled out of messaging apps, then pasted one by one into Slides to build a pitch she'd send to the client for review and sign-off. It often took days of back-and-forth to finish.

What did I do?

I connected Google Form, Sheets, Slides, and Drive, added a bit of Apps Script, and now one button press does all of this: automatically generate the matching recruitment form → applicants fill it out and land in the right Sheet automatically → the shortlisted ones get turned into a pitch deck automatically → and once the project wraps, a closing report is generated automatically.

Because the scenarios differ, I wrote two separate SOPs: one for KOLs in online sponsorships, another for SGs at live events — the recruiting logic for these two roles isn't quite the same.

With this automation in place, I figure her work time could go from two days to two hours. The time she saves, she can spend with the kids, mindlessly scrolling her phone, or playing mahjong with my brother and my mom.

As usual, I didn't write a single line of code for any of it. I just discussed the specs back and forth with Claude, looked at the scripts it wrote, ran them, caught the bugs, and went back to adjust. The AI got stuck several times along the way, and sometimes I'd just complain straight to it — "how are you getting dumber?" — and it would apologize, note down the lesson learned, break the problem into smaller pieces, and the next round it'd work again. Bit by bit, it improved.

Along the way I also learned a few things I didn't know before. Turns out you can keep one "master template" Google Form untouched, then use a script to write the variations — each time you create a new script, you change certain questions in the master template through a few prompts, and you can easily spin out a customized event form. The master template always stays as it is. Switching between different events never messes it up.

This tool really isn't high-tech at all. Google's own Form / Sheets / Slides — you've definitely used them, nobody just told you how powerful they get when you wire them together. You don't need to know much about programming either; all you need is to be able to "push specs back and forth with an AI."

A lot of people assume AI automation requires knowing how to code, or subscribing to expensive SaaS software. I don't think that's necessarily true. Sometimes what the people around you need is just Google's suite of apps + someone willing to spend the time going back and forth with an AI.

If someone around you is being driven crazy by some repetitive paperwork, come talk to me.

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#Solopreneur #AIInPractice #GoogleAppsScript #KeepLifeSimple #MakingFamilyLifeEasier