Make: Stop Letting Urgent Requests Sit in the Same Pile as Routine Ones. Route Them With a Router and a Filter

A lot of small offices I talk to have the same setup. A web form collects requests, an automation drops each one into a spreadsheet, and someone checks the sheet when they get a moment.

That works fine until one request is not like the others. A patient with a chipped tooth lands in the same list as a patient who wants a cleaning next month. Nobody sees it until they scroll down. The cost is not a line on an invoice. It is a call-back that happens hours late, to the one person who needed it fast.

I run Stepthrough, free hands-on AI and software training for white-collar workers, and this is one of the lessons I built for it. The example business is Brookside Dental, a small dental practice. It is made up, but the problem is real for office managers, front-desk staff and small business owners who already have one simple Make scenario running.

Why this matters

A scenario that only copies data is a pipe. A scenario that sorts data is a helper. The step from one to the other is small: a router, one filter, and a fallback route.

A router on its own does not choose anything. Without filters, every bundle of data goes down every route, one after another. The filter is what makes the decision. The fallback route is what makes sure nothing gets lost.

The setup

You start from a basic scenario: a Google Forms trigger that adds each new patient request as a row in Google Sheets. The form has a new question, How urgent is this?, with two choices: Urgent and Routine.

The goal: urgent requests email the front desk. Everything else still lands in the sheet, as before.

Part 1: add a router

1. In Make, Right-click the dotted line between Google Forms and Google Sheets.
2. Click Add a router. The router now sits between the two modules, and Google Sheets is on the first route.
3. Click the + on the router to add a second route.

Part 2: build the urgent route

1. Click the empty module at the end of the new route.
2. Type gmail, then click Gmail.
3. Under Actions, click Send an email.
4. Gmail is a separate app in Make, so it needs its own connection. Click Create a connection, keep the default name, and click Sign in with Google.
5. Pick the Gmail account the alert should come from, then click Continue.
6. In To, type the front desk's address. The lesson uses [e-mail].
7. In Subject, type Urgent patient request.
8. Leave Body type as it is. Click the Body contents field.
9. In the mapping panel, under Full name, click Value. Do the same under Phone number and Reason for visit.
10. Click Save.

In your own scenario, type a few words between the mapped tags, like "Name:" and "Phone:", so the email is easier to read at a glance.

Part 3: filter for urgent only

Right now every response would go down both routes. The filter fixes that.

1. Click the wrench on the line going to Gmail.
2. Click Set up a filter.
3. In Label, type Urgent.
4. Click the first Condition field. Under How urgent is this?, click Value.
5. Keep the operator Equal to. In the field below it, type Urgent.
6. Click Save. The label now shows on the route.

A condition has three parts: a value you map from an earlier module, an operator, and the value to compare it with. If the condition is true, the data continues. If not, it stops there.

Part 4: make the sheet the fallback route

1. Click the dotted line near Google Sheets. A left-click on the dots opens the filter straight away.
2. In Label, type Routine.
3. Set Fallback route to Yes.
4. Click Save. The arrow on this route changes to mark it as the fallback.

Part 5: set the route order

Routes run one after another, in the order you set, not at the same time. Put the urgent one first.

1. Right-click the router.
2. Click Order routes.
3. Click the up arrow next to the Gmail route.
4. Tick Auto-align arranges with set order, so the canvas is redrawn in the new order.
5. Click Apply.

Part 6: test it

1. Click the Save icon in the toolbar.
2. Click Run once. In the lesson, two requests are waiting: James chipped a tooth and marked it urgent, and Priya wants a cleaning.
3. Each route shows a bubble with a 1. One response went each way.
4. Open the Gmail tab: there is the alert about James, with his phone number, ready for a call back.
5. Open the Google Sheets tab: Priya's request is in the sheet.

Common mistakes

Typing the filter value loosely. Text comparisons with Equal to must match exactly. "urgent" or "Urgent " with a trailing space will not pass. This is why a multiple-choice question works so well here: the answer is always spelled the same way.

Writing a second filter instead of a fallback. It is tempting to add a "Routine" condition on the sheet route. Then a request that is neither, or a third choice someone adds to the form later, goes nowhere. The fallback route catches everything that did not pass the other filters, so no request gets lost.

Expecting instant alerts. The Google Forms trigger checks on a schedule, every 15 minutes by default. An urgent alert arrives within that window, not the second the form is sent. Tell the front desk that, so they trust the system for what it is.

Checklist

• Router added between the trigger and the sheet
• Gmail Send an email on the new route, with its own connection
• To, Subject and Body contents filled, with name, phone and reason mapped
• Filter labelled Urgent, condition Equal to Urgent
• Sheet route labelled Routine, Fallback route set to Yes
• Gmail route moved first in Order routes
• Scenario saved and tested with Run once

Where else this pattern fits

Any time one kind of request needs different handling, the shape is the same: a router, one filtered route for the special case, and a fallback route for everything else. Big orders to a manager. After-hours calls to an on-call phone. VIP customers to a separate sheet. Complaints to a shared inbox. You can combine conditions with Add AND rule and Add OR rule when one check is not enough.

Practice it step by step

I built a free interactive version of this lesson: 40 steps in 7 parts, about 12 minutes. You do every click yourself in a practice copy of Make that checks your work as you go, and nothing touches your real accounts. If you get stuck, "Do it for me" finishes the step.

Start it here: Filters and Routers in Make.com

It builds on the first module, where you connect Google Forms to Google Sheets, so if you have not built that scenario yet, start there.