n8n Gmail Triage Workflow: GPT-4o Candidate Replies to Sheets & Telegram

Turn incoming Gmail candidate emails into GPT-4o triage, spreadsheet logs, manager approvals, and Telegram alerts—automatically.

This n8n Gmail Triage Workflow monitors a Gmail label for new candidate messages, uses OpenAI (via LangChain) to classify and draft replies, records every thread in Google Sheets, routes applications for manager approval, and sends urgent/failed-flow alerts to Telegram.

What this workflow does

• Gmail trigger (every minute): Watches for new emails under your specified Gmail label.
• Email normalization & filtering: Extracts thread ID, sender, subject, and snippet; skips automated senders such as no-reply/notifications.
• Duplicate protection with Google Sheets: Checks the applicant_log for an existing thread_id to avoid re-processing.
• AI triage with OpenAI + LangChain: Classifies the message (application/question/other), assesses sentiment, and generates a short draft reply and suggested subject.
• Approval workflow: Creates an approval token and approval link, then appends email details and AI results to Google Sheets.
• Routing actions: Sends application emails to the hiring manager with the draft reply and approval link; for non-applications, it automatically replies to the sender.
• Telegram alerts: Alerts Telegram for negative or urgent applications, and notifies Telegram if the workflow errors or AI output is malformed.

Use cases

• Recruiting teams that want faster candidate response with consistent AI triage.
• SaaS operators logging inbound inquiries to Google Sheets while keeping approvals auditable.
• Automation engineers building n8n Gmail → GPT-4o → Sheets → Telegram pipelines for support or hiring inboxes.

Technical details

• Integrations: Gmail, Google Sheets, Telegram
• AI layer: OpenAI via LangChain agent (classification, sentiment, draft reply)
• Control logic: if, set, code, no op, crypto (approval token), plus Telegram messaging nodes

Setup note: Create a Gmail label for incoming applications and an applicant_log sheet tab (including thread_id, sender, subject, category, sentiment, draft_reply, status) to start processing.