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| | contentType: tutorial |
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| | # Automating a business workflow |
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| | Remember [our friend Nathan](/courses/level-one/chapter-3.md)? |
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| | **Nathan 🙋:** Hello, it's me again. My manager was so impressed with my first workflow automation solution that she entrusted me with more responsibility.<br/> |
| | **You 👩🔧:** More work and responsibility. Congratulations, I guess. What do you need to do now?<br/> |
| | **Nathan 🙋:** I got access to all our sales data and I'm now responsible for creating two reports: one for regional sales and one for orders prices. They're based on data from different sources and come in different formats.<br/> |
| | **You 👩🔧:** Sounds like a lot of manual work, but the kind that can be automated. Let's do it! |
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| | ## Workflow design |
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| | Now that we know what Nathan wants to automate, let's list the steps he needs to take to achieve this: |
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| | 1. Get and combine data from all necessary sources. |
| | 2. Sort the data and format the dates. |
| | 3. Write binary files. |
| | 4. Send notifications using email and Discord. |
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| | n8n provides [core nodes](/integrations/builtin/node-types.md#core-nodes) for all these steps. This use case is somewhat complex. We should build it from three separate workflows: |
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| | 1. A workflow that merges the company data with external information. |
| | 2. A workflow that generates the reports. |
| | 3. A workflow that monitors errors in the second workflow. |
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| | ## Workflow prerequisites |
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| | To build the workflows, you will need the following: |
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| | * An [Airtable](https://airtable.com/){:target="_blank" .external-link} account and [credentials](/integrations/builtin/credentials/airtable.md). |
| | * A [Google](https://www.google.com/account/about/){:target="_blank" .external-link} account and [credentials](/integrations/builtin/credentials/google/index.md) to access Gmail. |
| | * A [Discord](https://discord.com/){:target="_blank" .external-link} account and webhook URL (you receive this using email when you sign up for this course). |
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| | Next, you will build these three workflows with step-by-step instructions. |
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