Google Sheets Trigger: Send PDF Certificates via Gmail

Automate PDF certificate delivery: Google Sheets → thirds.ai → Gmail

When a new learner is added to your Google Sheet, this n8n workflow automatically generates a personalized PDF certificate using thirds.ai and sends it to the learner via Gmail—no HTML coding required.

What this workflow does

This Google Sheets trigger workflow streamlines certificate issuance end-to-end:

• 1) Triggers on new rows in your Google Sheets worksheet.
• 2) Populates the certificate template by sending learner name, course, date, and issuer data to the thirds.ai PDF API (using an idempotency key based on the sheet row number and email).
• 3) Waits and polls render status: if the job is queued or running, it waits 3 seconds and checks again until the render succeeds.
• 4) Downloads the finished PDF from the download URL returned by thirds.ai.
• 5) Emails the certificate to the learner using Gmail, attaching the PDF with a formatted subject and message.
• 6) Fails safely: if thirds.ai returns a non-success status that isn’t queued/running, the workflow stops with an error.

Use cases

• Issue certificates immediately when learners enroll or complete training—driven purely by new Google Sheets entries.
• Send branded course completion PDFs to learners for SaaS training, workshops, or internal learning programs.
• Run reliable certificate generation for ongoing cohorts without manual exports or copy/paste emailing.

Technical details

• Google Sheets Trigger: starts the workflow when a new row is added.
• HTTP Request (thirds.ai): calls the thirds.ai PDF API and polls render status.
• Wait: pauses 3 seconds between status checks.
• Conditional logic (if): handles queued/running vs success vs failure.
• Gmail: sends the PDF certificate as an attachment.
• Stop and error: terminates on non-success states.
• Template setup: use the thirds.ai Portrait course certificate gallery template and paste the Template ID (tpl_...) into the certificate PDF node.