Daily Stale Approvals Digest with Inistate + Email (n8n)

Keep approval backlogs under control with a Daily Stale Approvals Digest

This n8n workflow runs every morning at 9:00 to detect Inistate entries stuck in a specific approval state for longer than a set number of days, then emails you an HTML digest via SMTP—so stale approvals don’t quietly linger.

What this workflow does

• Schedules daily using a Schedule Trigger (runs every morning at 9:00).
• Reads configuration values for:
  • the exact Inistate approval state name
  • the stale-day threshold (how many days before an item is considered stale)
  • email recipients and the from address
• Queries Inistate for entries currently in the configured approval state and not updated since the calculated cutoff date.
• Aggregates results into a single list of stale items.
• Generates an email with:
  • subject line for the digest
  • an HTML table summarizing each entry (ID, last updated, updated by, and assignees)
• Sends the digest via SMTP to the configured recipients.

Use cases

• Operations teams monitoring approvals that should move forward but may be stalled in a specific Inistate state.
• SaaS operators needing daily visibility into stale workflow items without manually checking Inistate.
• Automation engineers standardizing governance: consistent reporting for approvals past an SLA threshold.

Technical details

• Schedule Trigger: runs every day at 9:00.
• Inistate integration: n8n-nodes-inistateinistate to query entries by workspace/module and approval state.
• Data handling: set and aggregate to prepare the stale cutoff and compile the digest.
• Email delivery: HTML digest sent using email send (SMTP) with an SMTP email credential.
• Optional notes: sticky note for workflow documentation.

Setup reminder: add an Inistate credential, configure the target state and stale threshold, then verify your SMTP server allows the chosen from address.