Popular SaaS integrations: Slack, Gmail, Google Sheets and Drive

Why every office worker needs these four

In Chapter 7 you saw the nine broad node categories, and in Chapter 8 you built your first workflow by hand. Back in a real office, though, here is what you run into:

• Your boss wants "a Slack message to the sales channel whenever a new customer arrives"
• Marketing wants "a Gmail thank-you note sent automatically when someone completes a Google Form"
• Admin wants "the CRM data backed up to Google Sheets every day"
• Design wants "files that customers upload filed automatically into their own folder on Google Drive"

These four have a near monopoly on the everyday tools of small and mid-sized offices. Learn how to set up their nodes and you have covered 80% of what work throws at you. The less common services that are left (Notion, Airtable, Zoom) work much the same way, or you can call their API yourself with the HTTP Request node from Chapter 12.

The shared idea: every SaaS node has three dropdowns

Whether it is Slack, Gmail or Google Sheets, once you open the node you always find three dropdown menus at the top. Get those three layers straight and you can drive all four:

This structure is the common language n8n designed for all of its SaaS nodes. Faced with a new node you do not know? Look first at which Resources it has and which Operations sit under each Resource, and you have the map of that node.

The Slack node: the office notification workhorse

Slack is the node people reach for most often in n8n when they want to tell someone something. Whether your boss is watching sales numbers, developers are watching CI or admin is watching orders, the Slack node is the fastest way to put a message in front of everyone.

The most-used Resource / Operation combinations

In n8n v1 the Slack node's full Resource list has seven entries: Channel, File, Message, Reaction, Star, User, User Group. The combinations you will use day to day:

Two ways to do the credential

In the node's Authentication dropdown the two are called Access Token and OAuth2. The same Slack node can switch between them at will.

What you can type into the Text field

The Text field on Message → Send is not just plain text — Slack has its own markdown syntax:

What to do when you need to attach a file

Slack's Message → Send does not take binary attachments itself. To send a file, add a separate Slack → File → Upload node: pick the channel in Channel and put data in Input Data Field Name (matching the binary property from the node before it). The upload produces a message with the file on it. If you want text and a file at the same time, chain a Message Send node and a File Upload node together.

The Gmail node: it all starts with sending mail

The Gmail node is the all-purpose tool for sending mail and fetching mail. Marketing sending thank-you notes, support sending replies, sales watching for a customer's answer — they all run on this node.

The most-used Resource / Operation combinations

Only one credential type: Google OAuth2

The Gmail node's credential only supports Google OAuth2. The first time you set it up a Google authorization page opens: sign in to your Google account and agree to read and write access for Gmail. The whole thing takes under 30 seconds. Chapter 13 goes into what OAuth is actually doing.

What Send can do

• Plain text or HTML: switch with the Email Type dropdown. With HTML you can paste a complete HTML document and design a styled email
• To / CC / BCC / Reply-To: all four recipient fields take several addresses (comma-separated)
• Attachments: the Binary Data toggle, with the property name matching the file the node before it produced
• A Subject built from an expression: the subject line can be assembled dynamically, for example Order #{{ $json.order_id }} confirmed (expression syntax is in Chapter 14)

Fetching mail: all of Google's search syntax works here

The Filters block under Message → Get Many has a Search field (it is not called Filter, so do not go hunting for that). It takes exactly the syntax of the search bar in Gmail on the web:

The trigger version: the Gmail Trigger node

A separate node called Gmail Trigger (not Gmail) is the trigger node, and it can be set to run the workflow when new mail arrives. It is a polling node: the Poll Times dropdown offers Every Minute / Every Hour / Every Day and so on, and by default it pulls 10 messages at a time (Options → Limit takes that up to 50). Pick Every Minute if you want it near-instant, but polling that often on a large account will get you rate-limited by the Google API.

The Google Sheets node: the office's all-purpose database

For a lot of small and mid-sized companies, Google Sheets is the database. The CRM is a Sheet, the stock list is a Sheet, the event sign-up list is a Sheet. Learn this node and you have learned how to let n8n read and write the office's data.

The most-used Resource / Operation combinations

Two credential choices

Append Row: add a row

Append Row is the operation you will use most. The settings that matter:

1. Pick the Document

   The dropdown lists every Google Sheets file on your account, so just pick one. You can also paste a URL or a Sheet ID.

2. Pick the Sheet (the tab)

   One Sheets file can hold several tabs, so pick the right one.

3. Set Mapping Column Mode to manual

   The Mapping Column Mode dropdown has three options: Map Automatically (it fills the row on its own, as long as the keys in the upstream JSON match the Sheets headers exactly), Map Each Column Manually (you write an expression into each box yourself) and Nothing. When you are not sure the names line up, go manual — in automatic mode a single key with a different name leaves that column empty.

4. Fill in an expression per column

   Below that, n8n lists every header in the Sheet (say "Name / Email / Signed up at") with an input box for each one, where you drop in an expression: {{ $json.name }}, {{ $json.email }}, {{ $now }}.

Update: find a row and change it

The Update operation has one field that decides everything, Column to Match On, where you choose which column acts as the key for finding the row. For example: a customer status sheet keyed on Email, with upstream sending { email: "[email protected]", status: "paid" }. The Sheets node looks for the row whose Email column is [email protected] and sets its status column to "paid".

The Google Drive node: where the files live

The Drive node is mainly there to store files and to fetch them. Filing customer uploads automatically, putting a daily backup CSV in the cloud, downloading an attachment for the next node to use — all of that runs through this node.

The most-used Resource / Operation combinations

Credential: Google OAuth2

The same as Gmail: you authorize with Google OAuth2. If you already set up a Gmail credential, you can pick that same one in the Drive node without authorizing again.

Upload: put a file into Drive

Upload needs three things:

Three ways to fill in the Parent field (Resource Locator)

From n8n v1 on, the Drive and Folder fields on the Google Drive node are both Resource Locator (RLC) fields — one field with three modes to switch between:

All three get you the same result. What you cannot enter is the folder name — a name will not do, and anything that is not an ID, a URL or a pick from the list is rejected.

Download: pull a file out of Drive

Download needs only a File ID. The file ID usually comes from the node before it (Drive Search or a trigger, say), or you take it from the file's share link yourself: in the link drive.google.com/file/d/1xxx/view, the string in the middle is the file ID. The download hands binary downstream, for a Slack node to attach or a Gmail node to send with an email.

Worked example: a new form entry sends a Gmail, attaches a Drive file and posts to Slack

Wire all four services from this chapter into one real workflow. The scenario: a customer fills in a Google Form and uploads a file with it, and you want to send them a thank-you email automatically, attach the file they uploaded, and tell the sales channel on Slack that a new customer has come in.

1. Trigger: Google Forms Trigger or Google Sheets Trigger

   Drop in a Google Sheets Trigger (most Google Forms write their responses into a Sheet automatically) and set it to fire when a new row appears. Set Trigger On to Row Added, and use the RLC to point Document and Sheet at the Sheet holding the form responses. Every Minute is fine for Poll Times.

2. Google Drive Download: fetch the file the customer uploaded

   If the form has a file-upload question, that row in the Sheet holds a share link to a Drive file. Add a Google Drive → File → Download node and use an expression to pull the file ID out of the URL from the previous step: {{ $json["Attachment"].split("id=")[1] }}. When this step finishes it emits binary, which the rest of the workflow can use as an attachment.

3. Gmail Send: email the person who filled in the form

   Add a Gmail → Message → Send node. Put {{ $('Google Sheets Trigger').item.json["Email"] }} in the To field (referring to the Email column of the form from step one), type "Thank you for your submission - Hello {{ $('Google Sheets Trigger').item.json["Name"] }}" into Subject, and write your thank-you text into Message. Expand Options → Attachments and put data in Property Name (Binary) — that sends the file downloaded from Drive in the previous step along with the email.

4. Slack Message Send: tell the sales channel

   Add a Slack → Message → Send node. Pick #new-forms as the Channel (or its channel ID), and build the Text with an expression: *New form submission!*\nName: {{ $('Google Sheets Trigger').item.json["Name"] }}\nEmail: {{ $('Google Sheets Trigger').item.json["Email"] }}\nSubject: {{ $('Google Sheets Trigger').item.json["Subject"] }}\nThank-you email sent automatically :white_check_mark:.

5. Save, then Execute Workflow to test it once

   Save with Ctrl+S at the top right. Go and fill in the Google Form by hand with some fake data, come back to n8n and press Execute Workflow. Once all four nodes have turned green with a check, look in the mailbox to see whether the email arrived, and in Slack to see whether the notification landed.

6. Turn on the Activate toggle

   Once the test is fine, flip the Active toggle at the top right. From that moment on, whenever anyone fills in the form, n8n runs this workflow for you.

Using several accounts on the same node

On n8n's Credentials page (in the left-hand menu) you can create several credentials of the same kind. For example:

• Slack personal workspace
• Slack company workspace
• Slack customer A workspace

The Credential dropdown on each Slack node then lets you pick which one it uses. One workflow can even hold two Slack nodes on different workspaces — internal notices going to the company workspace, customer replies going to the customer's workspace, say. Gmail, Sheets and Drive work the same way.

Managing credentials in full — how to name them, how to share them, how to revoke them — is covered in Chapter 13.

Common pitfalls and fixes

FAQ