Gathering data from different sources

Questions
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1

Hey Community!

How is it possible to use the Edit Fields (Set) to merge data from different sources (here: 1. Webhook with a “userMessage” from the body and 2. Chat Trigger.)

Depending on the order of the value from “userMessage” inside the “Edit Fields”-node - either Webhook or Chat Trigger - will be executed. In this case only the Chat Trigger is working.

When I try to use the webhook, following error is being displayed:

Referenced node is unexecuted
An expression references the node ‘When chat message received’, but it hasn’t been executed yet. Either change the expression, or re-wire your workflow to make sure that node executes first.

Appreciate and ideas on how to solve that issue!

2

If you need both sources to contribute data to the same flow, the cleanest approach is to:

  • Have a single trigger (ideally a webhook).
  • Send the entire message context from the external source (chat or frontend).
  • Use conditional logic within n8n to differentiate the source.
  • Avoid references to unexecuted nodes.

That is, restructure with a single trigger and separate routes with conditions. Instead of having two separate triggers (Webhook and Chat Trigger), you could:

  • Use a single Webhook that accepts both types of input.
  • Add logic within the flow to distinguish between webhook and chat userMessage.
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3

Thanks for that quick response, Erick!

Ok so would that mean:
If I had a code node to generate an UUID, based on if the user already has a session or not, and I’d send it via webhook as well, it could not be done, if the User already has one, right? I mean if I used an if-node, the UUID-node wasn’t executed and therefore not available. Does that mean I need to have duplicated code?

Being able to use unreferenced nodes as well would be way simpler, even though I’m already using JS with nullish coalesking.

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4

You can unify logic into a single Code node. Use a Code node to detect whether the data is coming from the webhook or the chat, and generate a UUID only if it’s missing:

const sessionId = $json.sessionId || require('uuid').v4();
return [{ json: { ...$json, sessionId } }];

This way, you don’t depend on separate nodes, and everything flows dynamically.

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5

Ok I get what you mean. Guess I’ll play around with that a bit.

FYI: At least I found another solution (tested with the message): Merging both nodes together, referencing to the “Merge”-node and reference to “different” objects. Example below:

Erick, thank you for taking your time and your help!

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