n8n Regulatory RSS Digest to Google Sheets & Email

Turn regulatory RSS updates into review-ready digests—automatically

This n8n workflow automatically collects new regulatory and bar association items from RSS feeds, organizes them by practice area, logs each draft to Google Sheets, and emails a reviewer for approval—then sends a separate weekly reminder if any drafts remain pending too long.

What this workflow does

• Runs Mondays at 8:00am and checks whether the AGENCY_BAR_FEED_URLS variable contains at least one RSS feed URL.
• If feeds are configured, it reads each RSS feed and collects recent items within the DIGEST_LOOKBACK_DAYS window.
• Tags items by practice area using the PRACTICE_AREA_KEYWORDS map, dropping any items that match no practice area and grouping the digest accordingly.
• If no feeds are configured, it still creates a “setup required” digest notice so there’s always a logged draft and review email.
• Creates a unique digest ID, appends a draft record with status = pending_review to the Google Sheet tab named “Regulatory Digest Drafts”, and emails the draft to the content reviewer via SMTP.
• Runs Thursdays at 9:00am to read the same Google Sheets log and filter drafts where status = pending_review and the draft is older than STALE_DRAFT_REMINDER_DAYS.
• If stale drafts exist, it sends a reminder email via SMTP listing the pending digest IDs; otherwise, it skips sending.

Use cases

• Legal ops teams needing weekly regulatory updates grouped by practice area.
• Automation engineers building a reliable content intake pipeline from RSS sources.
• SaaS operators managing editorial review workflows with a “no stale drafts” reminder process.

Technical details

• Scheduling: Monday 8:00am and Thursday 9:00am.
• RSS feed intake: RSS Feed Read.
• Logic & filtering: if, code, and no op steps to handle configured vs. missing feeds and practice-area tagging.
• Logging: Google Sheets (write new drafts to “Regulatory Digest Drafts”).
• Email delivery: Email Send via SMTP (initial digest + stale-draft reminders).
• Recommended config: REGULATORY_LOG_SHEET_ID pointing to the spreadsheet with matching columns, plus the feed and keyword variables above.