Automate your work with n8n
- starting today.
A hands-on starter session for Bayer PH. No code, no prior experience needed - you'll build two real workflows yourself and leave thinking "I could automate this in my job."
Four hours: a live demo, two workflows, three short breaks.
Welcome & what is n8n
n8n as the glue between your systems and AI. A tour of the canvas, nodes, and execution view.
End-to-end demo
A live run of both finished workflows - see the destination before we build it.
Workflow 1 · Chat with an AI Agent
Build an AI Agent, give it a tool, and chat with it live - nodes, execution view, tool calling.
Break
Workflow 2 · Fetch & clean the invoice data
The schedule trigger pulls the invoice data and shapes it - the first half of the automation loop.
Break
Workflow 2 · Compose, send & run it live
Build the email, run the workflow end to end, and watch it land in your own inbox.
Break
Quiz & your ideas
A quick quiz and a brainstorm of what you could automate in your own work.
Q&A · open floor
Bring your questions - about today's builds, the bootcamp, or automating your own tasks.
Aemal Sayer
CTO & Co-Founder · Avanai
Avanai is an n8n expert partner, working with Bayer to deliver hands-on n8n enablement. I help teams go from zero to building real automations - exactly like the two you'll build today.
n8n is the glue between your systems and AI.
Think of every tool you use - email, databases, spreadsheets, approval systems, AI models - as an island. n8n is the bridge between them. You connect steps (called nodes) into a workflow, and n8n runs them in order, passing data from one to the next. That's the whole concept.
Nodes
Each box is one step - "fetch this data", "send that email", "ask the AI". You add them from the node panel and wire them together on the canvas.
Workflows
A chain of nodes from a trigger to an outcome. Data flows left to right. No buttons to press once it's running - it just works.
Executions
Every run is recorded. The execution view shows exactly what each step did and what data came back - your window into the workflow.
🧭 What n8n is not, today: it's not a tool for building forms or user interfaces. We use it to connect systems and AI - that's where its power is.
Every workflow begins with a trigger.
A trigger is the event that kicks a workflow off and hands it the first piece of data. Pick the one that fits the job - the rest of the nodes just follow. You'll use two of these today.
Chat / Manual
You start it - a chat message or a one-click run.
Schedule
Runs on a clock - every hour, every morning, every Monday.
App event
"New email", "row added", "form submitted" - n8n reacts on its own.
Webhook
Another system calls n8n directly with a URL to start the flow.
🔌 And it connects to everything: 400+ ready-made app integrations, 30+ AI model nodes (OpenAI, Claude, Gemini), and an HTTP node that can reach any API on the planet - so nothing is off-limits.
From a single email to a full AI agent.
The same building blocks cover a huge range of work. A few patterns teams automate every day:
Reports & alerts
Pull data on a schedule, format it, and email or Slack it - exactly like Workflow 2 today.
AI agents & chatbots
Answer questions over your own data, call tools, and take actions - like Workflow 1.
Support automation
Triage tickets, draft replies, look up orders, and escalate the tricky ones.
Data sync
Keep CRM, spreadsheets, and databases in step without copy-paste.
IT & security ops
Enrich alerts, automate routine fixes, and cut response time.
Document extraction
Read invoices, forms, and PDFs with AI and push the data where it belongs.
📈 Real results: Field Aerospace cut proposal drafting from two weeks to ~25 minutes. Koralplay now auto-resolves 70% of payment tickets. Vodafone saved £2.2M automating threat intelligence.
Built to run in a regulated enterprise.
The same tool you're learning today scales straight to production - which is why 34% of the Fortune 500 already run on n8n.
Security & control
Self-host or cloud, SSO / SAML, SOC 2, and secrets in Vault, AWS, or Azure - your data stays yours.
Governance
Project-level access, Git as the source of truth, and separate dev & production environments.
Confidence at scale
AI evaluations before you ship, 200+ executions/sec, and an insights dashboard to prove ROI.
🏢 In good company: Meta, Microsoft, Vodafone, and Zendesk build on n8n. Source: n8n.io/enterprise
From one workflow to millions of runs.
The workflow you build today on a laptop is the same workflow that runs in production - you don't rebuild it to scale, you just add capacity behind it.
Queue mode & workers
Hand executions to a pool of worker processes. Need more throughput? Add more workers - no workflow changes.
Multi-main & failover
Run several main instances with automatic failover, so a single node going down doesn't stop the line.
High throughput
200+ executions per second on a tuned setup - enough to drive real, business-critical volume.
🩺 And you can see it all: execution logs stream into your own monitoring stack, and the insights dashboard tracks runs, failure rates, and time saved as you scale up.
The nodes you'll use across both workflows.
Every step in n8n is a node. Here's the full set we'll touch today - tick each one off as we cover it.
| Node | What it does | Used in | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chat Trigger | Opens a chat box so you can talk to the agent | WF 1 | |
| Manual Trigger | Runs the workflow on demand with one click | WF 2 | |
| AI Agent | Reasons, calls tools, and produces the answer | Both | |
| OpenAI Chat Model | The LLM "brain" attached to the AI Agent | Both | |
| HTTP Request Tool | Lets the agent fetch data from an API as a tool | WF 1 | |
| HTTP Request | Calls Databricks, and sends the email via Graph | WF 2 | |
| Edit Fields (Set) | Sets values - here, the recipient address | WF 2 | |
| Code | Custom JavaScript - shapes data & builds the email | WF 2 | |
| Split Out | Splits a list into one item per invoice | WF 2 | |
| Structured Output Parser | Forces the agent's output into a fixed JSON shape | WF 2 | |
| Aggregate | Recombines the items back into one list | WF 2 |
Let's see it run, end to end.
Before we build anything, here's the destination. A quick live run of both finished workflows - the AI Agent you can chat with, and the scheduled invoice email landing in the inbox.
Follow every click, live, on your own screen.
We'll use AvaStage to keep you in sync. It mirrors my screen to your device with a fresh screenshot every 3 seconds - miss a click? Rewind and replay it at your own pace. Got a question? Post it in AvaStage and upvote others'. I'll jump back in regularly to answer them, so don't hold your questions to the end - fire them in as they come.
Chat with an AI Agent
Your first workflow. An AI Agent that answers questions by calling a tool to fetch live data - and you'll talk to it.
⬇ Download workflow JSON
Chat in → agent thinks → agent calls a tool → agent answers.
message received"
The agent has one tool: get_users, which fetches a list of users from a free, public endpoint.
When you ask about users, the agent decides on its own to call the tool, reads what comes back, and answers you.
It's the simplest possible way to see tool calling in action.
Three nodes, wired in a couple of clicks.
get_usersGETjsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users🧪 Why this endpoint: it returns dummy users, needs no API key, and never fails in front of a live audience. It's just a clean vehicle to demonstrate tool calling.
Talk to your agent. Watch it reach for the tool.
🔎 The teaching moment: after each answer, open the execution view. You'll see the tool being called and the data coming back - proof the agent isn't guessing, it's fetching. This is the heart of the first 30 minutes.
Now let's build it - step by step.
Time to switch to the n8n canvas and build Workflow 1 together, node by node. Follow along in AvaStage - rewind any step you miss, and keep firing your questions as we go.
Back at —
Up next · Workflow 2 · Fetch & clean the invoice data
Scheduled invoice email
The complete automation loop - data in, logic applied, an email sent - running on its own every morning. Nobody presses a button.
⬇ Download workflow JSON
Fetch → clean → send. Every morning at 9 AM.
This is the same fetch → clean → send pattern behind countless real automations - just with real-feeling invoice data in the middle. Once the schedule is on, the workflow runs itself: it pulls the invoices due soon, turns them into an email, and sends it. The "we could automate our invoice chasing" moment.
Four steps from a schedule to an inbox.
09:00📨 Each person sends to their own address - not a shared distribution list - so the email lands in a place you control and can open right away.
Every morning, your invoices are already triaged.
Once this workflow is live it runs by itself - every morning at 9 AM, before you even open your day. You just find the email waiting:
- 📊Top 10 invoices due in the near future, ranked for you.
- 🤖A short AI-generated summary of each one.
- 🗄️Pulled live from Databricks - reflecting your real invoice sources (SmartPay / SAP).
- ⏰No clicks, no chasing - it just lands in your inbox.
Now let's build it - step by step.
Time to switch to the n8n canvas and build Workflow 2 together, node by node. Follow along in AvaStage - rewind any step you miss, and keep firing your questions as we go.
Back at —
Up next · Workflow 2 · Compose, send & run it live
Run it once. Watch the email arrive. Then let it loop.
▶️ What we do live
Now imagine your real data
Swap the demo source for your actual invoice, PO, or approval data and this same workflow becomes a vendor-reminder service, an approval nudge, or an overdue-invoice chaser - built by you, running on its own.
You just built the seed of a bootcamp workflow.
What you built today is a deliberately simplified version of a workflow from the week-long bootcamp. Same backbone - a schedule pulling invoice data and emailing it - but in the bootcamp it grows up.
✅ Today · the starter version
Schedule → Databricks → compose → send. The complete loop, end to end, built by a complete beginner.
🚀 In the bootcamp · the full version
The same workflow plus header enrichment, data tables, caching, and AI analysis of the invoices. Recognise the through-line.
Back at —
Up next · Quiz & your ideas
Quick quiz
Five questions, multiple choice, just for fun. One of you answers - we reveal together. Confetti if you nailed it.
What is n8n best described as in today's session?
The answer
n8n is the glue between your systems and AI. It connects the tools you already use and passes data between them - that's the whole idea we built on today. It is not a UI or form builder.
In Workflow 1, what did the AI Agent use to fetch the list of users?
The answer
The agent called a tool - the get_users HTTP Request - to fetch the data, then answered
from what came back. You saw exactly that happen in the execution view.
What made Workflow 2 run by itself every morning?
The answer
The Schedule Trigger is what makes a workflow run on its own. Set it to daily at 09:00 and the whole chain fires every morning - no button, no person.
Where do you look to see exactly what each step of a workflow did?
The answer
The execution tab records every run and shows what each step did and what data came back. It's your window into the workflow - and where you saw the tool being called.
Which of these did we deliberately NOT use today?
The answer
We deliberately avoided Microsoft Teams - to keep from notifying real people we don't control. Each email went to your own inbox instead, so the lab stays safe and self-contained.
What could you automate?
You've now built both patterns - an AI Agent that calls a tool, and a scheduled job that fetches, shapes, and sends. Almost every repetitive task at Bayer PH is some mix of these two. A few starting points:
Invoice chasing
Email vendors automatically when an invoice is overdue.
Approval nudges
Remind approvers about purchase requests waiting on them.
Daily PO digest
A morning summary of new purchase orders, in your inbox.
Ask-your-data agent
An AI Agent that answers "which invoices are due this week?"
Exception alerts
Flag invoices over a threshold or missing a PO reference.
Vendor onboarding
Route a new-vendor form through the right steps automatically.
Q&A · open floor
Anything from today - the AI Agent, the scheduled email, n8n in general, or how this could fit your own work. Ask away.
You built two workflows.
Now go automate your job.
You'll get annotated, step-by-step guides for both - and there's a week-long bootcamp when you're ready to go deeper.
