Classify Supplier Tiers: Google Sheets + Groq + Slack Alerts

Automatically classify your suppliers into actionable tiers—then notify your team

Classify Supplier Tiers: Google Sheets + Groq + Slack Alerts is an n8n workflow that runs daily to read supplier records from Google Sheets, calculate a weighted supplier score, assign each supplier a tier, generate a short Groq-powered tier justification, update the sheet + audit log, and send Gmail and Slack notifications whenever tiers change.

What this workflow does

• Runs daily at the configured time.
• Reads supplier rows from Google Sheets and filters to suppliers that have a supplier_id and are not yet marked as processed.
• Validates and normalizes data: fills missing spend, risk, and performance values with defaults, and ensures annual spend is greater than 0.
• Calculates a weighted score from annual spend, performance score, and risk score, then assigns the tier as Strategic, Preferred, or Transactional.
• Generates a 2–3 line JSON tier justification using a Groq-hosted LLM (via a LangChain agent), then extracts the tier_reason text.
• Updates Google Sheets: if the tier is new or changed, it updates the supplier row and appends a change record to a Google Sheets audit log.
• Sends alerts: tier-change notifications go out via Gmail and Slack. If there’s no change, it marks the supplier as processed with a standard “no change” reason and sends a no-change summary.

Use cases

• Operations teams needing daily supplier tiering without manual scoring spreadsheets.
• SaaS operators maintaining governance with a persistent Google Sheets audit log.
• Procurement stakeholders who want Slack alerts (and email updates via Gmail) when suppliers move tiers.

Technical details

• Integrations/nodes: Google Sheets, Groq (LLM via LangChain agent), Slack, Gmail.
• Logic/automation nodes: if, set, code, plus a sticky note for workflow guidance.

Ideal for n8n users and automation engineers who want a reliable supplier scoring automation with clear tier reasoning and real-time team notifications.