Let's get this out of the way: you don't need Iris.ai to build a digest email. A decent RSS reader and a cron job could do it. But my team's manager got sold on the "AI research assistant" hype, so here we are, paying for it. Since we're stuck with it, I figured I'd at least automate the one useful feature—the weekly feed—to stop everyone from logging into yet another SaaS dashboard.
I set up a Zapier automation to pull the weekly digest and mail it out. The core of it is using Iris.ai's API to fetch the digest data. Their API docs are… typical. Here's the basic request I set up in Zapier's Code step (Python) to get the structured data for the last 7 days:
```python
import requests
# Your Iris.ai Workspace ID and API Key
workspace_id = input_data['workspace_id']
api_key = input_data['api_key']
url = f"https://api.iris.ai/v1/workspaces/{workspace_id}/digest"
headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {api_key}"}
params = {"days": 7}
response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, params=params)
return {"json_data": response.json()}
```
From there, it's a matter of parsing that JSON, formatting it into HTML, and using Zapier's Email step to send it to a distribution list. The integration is straightforward, which is the only positive thing I'll say about it.
The real cost isn't just the Iris.ai subscription. It's the Zapier tasks on top. For a team of 15, this "simple" automation will creep into a paid Zapier tier quickly. You're now locked into two services for a function that should be a built-in feature. If Iris.ai's digest is so smart, why can't it just *send an email* natively without a third-party glue service?
Just my 2 cents