n8n Workflow: Triage Project Requests with Airtable + OpenAI

Triage incoming project requests automatically—using Airtable + OpenAI—with optional Slack approval and weekly email summaries

This n8n workflow receives project requests via a webhook, validates the minimum brief, uses OpenAI to generate a triage summary and classification, scores risk/urgency, and stores the results in Airtable. If items are high-risk, it can route them to Slack for approval and update the Airtable record with the decision and next steps.

What this workflow does

• Accepts requests via POST webhook (or uses a manual test payload) and normalizes incoming fields.
• Validates required brief details; if missing, returns a 400 response with which fields are absent and clarification questions.
• Calls OpenAI to produce a triage summary and classification, extracting risks, dependencies, decisions, and a recommended owner type.
• Applies deterministic scoring to compute risk and urgency and determine the triage route.
• Creates a new Airtable triage record containing the request details, summary, score, and routing information.
• Routes approvals when needed: if the score exceeds the approval threshold, it prepares an approval message (optionally posts to Slack), records the approval outcome, and assigns or marks as declined.
• Finalizes the structured delivery handoff, updates Airtable with owner/status/next action, and responds to the webhook caller with the triage result.
• Weekly schedule support: loads open triage records, builds an operational summary, and can send an optional weekly summary email.

Use cases

• Centralize project intake from a form into a consistent triage pipeline.
• Standardize how SaaS teams evaluate risks and urgency before assigning owners.
• Require Slack-based approval for high-risk work while keeping Airtable as the source of truth.

Technical details

• Webhook, if, set, code, no op for validation, routing, and data shaping.
• OpenAI for triage summary, classification, and extracted fields (risks/dependencies/decisions/owner type).
• Airtable for storing triage records and updating status/next actions.
• Slack for optional approval routing.
• Gmail for the optional weekly summary email.