n8n Workflow: Route DCIM Change Requests from Gmail to Slack

Route DCIM change requests automatically—from Gmail to Slack (with GPT-4o extraction and DCIM validation)

This n8n workflow monitors your NOC shared Gmail inbox for data-center change requests, checks rack capacity in your DCIM API, uses OpenAI GPT-4o to classify and extract key fields, and then routes each request to the right Slack and Google Drive actions— including an approval gate for larger power upgrades.

What this workflow does

• Polls Gmail every minute for new emails sent to your NOC change-request inbox (recipient address/labels configured in the Gmail trigger).
• Looks up rack capacity in a DCIM HTTP API using the sender’s email address to identify the customer’s rack and current/provisioned power capacity.
• Uses OpenAI GPT-4o with a structured schema to classify the request type and extract fields such as rack ID, requested kW, circuit ID, and target cage.
• Routes into one of five paths: cross-connect, power upgrade, cooling alert acknowledgement, decommission, or other.
• Cross-connect: validates required details, generates a work order number, and saves a text work order to Google Drive.
• Power upgrades: checks requested kW against a self-serve threshold and rack headroom; when needed, requests Slack approval, then saves the final decision as a text record in Google Drive.
• Cooling alerts & decommissions: acknowledges alerts in the DCIM API or generates a checklist, saves it to Google Drive, and posts completion to a Slack NOC channel.

Use cases

• Automate NOC intake when change requests arrive by email.
• Reduce manual triage by extracting structured fields from free-text Gmail messages with GPT-4o.
• Ensure power upgrades follow policy by routing approvals via Slack and enforcing DCIM capacity checks.

Technical details

• Integrations: Gmail (OAuth2 trigger), Slack, Google Drive, internal DCIM HTTP API, OpenAI (GPT-4o).
• n8n node patterns: if, set, code, merge, slack, switch.
• Routing logic: request-type classification + conditional paths for cross-connect, power upgrade approvals, cooling acknowledgements, and decommission checklists.

Setup note: Connect Gmail OAuth2 credentials and update the Gmail trigger filter (recipient address/labels) to match your NOC intake mailbox.