Gmail RFQ Triage in n8n: OpenAI Draft Quote Replies

Turn incoming RFQ emails into complete, ready-to-send Gmail drafts—automatically

This n8n workflow monitors your Gmail for unread RFQ messages, extracts structured quote details with OpenAI (including optional PDF text), checks completeness, and then creates a Gmail draft reply with either a quote skeleton or a targeted request for missing information.

What this workflow does

• Runs every minute and triggers when an unread Gmail email matches your configured RFQ subject search query.
• Normalizes key metadata (sender, subject, thread ID, timestamp) and prepares the email body for processing.
• Optionally extracts PDF attachment text (when a PDF is present) and appends it to the RFQ payload.
• Uses OpenAI to extract structured RFQ fields, including: company, contact, line items, dates, address, packaging, incoterms, and special requirements. Any unstated fields are left as null.
• Validates completeness against a configurable required-field list, producing a missing-items summary and a complete/incomplete flag.
• Creates a draft reply in the same Gmail thread:
  • If complete: includes a quote skeleton with line items.
  • If incomplete: requests only the missing details.

Use cases

• SaaS sales/ops teams handling frequent RFQs and needing faster quote preparation.
• Automation engineers building a repeatable Gmail + OpenAI workflow for structured data extraction.
• Businesses receiving RFQs with PDFs that must be summarized into quote-ready fields.

Technical details

• Gmail Trigger: polls every minute for unread emails using your RFQ subject search query.
• Nodes/logic: if, set, code, plus a sticky note for guidance within the workflow.
• OpenAI: performs RFQ extraction into structured fields and enables completeness checks.
• Gmail: creates the draft reply in the original thread (requires permission to read unread messages and draft replies).