Hello, n8n Community!
I'm building a workflow to create a "living" operational report in Slack and would love to get your advice on the best pattern to solve a trigger-related issue.
The Goal:
My goal is to have a single, continuously updated Slack message for each of our campaigns. The data source is a single Google Sheet that is populated by a Google Form used by multiple agents throughout the day. When new data comes in, the workflow should update the single, corresponding report message in the correct Slack channel.
The Current Setup:
- Trigger: Google Sheets Trigger (On Row Added)
- Data Source: A single Google Sheet collecting responses for 5 different campaigns
- Intended Logic: The workflow should take new submissions, process them (group by campaign, calculate metrics, sort chronologically, and format), and then either create a new Slack message for that day's report or update the existing one
The Core Problem:
My main challenge is handling bursts of form submissions. When multiple agents submit their data at roughly the same time, the workflow triggers for each individual submission. This "race condition" causes the entire workflow to run multiple times in parallel, resulting in duplicate, nearly identical report messages being posted to our Slack channels and creating a lot of notification spam.
My Question for the Community:
What is the recommended n8n pattern for "debouncing" or "batching" these simultaneous triggers so they can be processed as a single, atomic transaction?
I've considered using a Wait node with Batching enabled immediately after the trigger to collect all submissions that arrive within a 1–2 minute window. This seems like a viable solution. The business requirement is for the report to be as real-time as possible, so a purely scheduled approach is not preferred.
I'm interested in hearing about any other robust solutions or best practices for creating a "Create or Update" Slack message pattern that can gracefully handle these burst conditions from a live trigger.
Workflow Details:
- n8n Version: 1.94.1 (Cloud)
- Key Apps: Google Sheets, Slack
Thanks in advance for any insights you can share!