How can I improve this better?

Questions
1

Describe the problem/error/question

Hey team, I’m building a small workflow automation and need your advise on good practises. The flow includes reading a mail that has a pdf, extract data, check if a sheet with the contractor name exists in the given google sheets doc and if not create 1, populate initial rows and then upsert, else directly upsert.
I feel that i’ve hacked my way through this (need to learn more).

I was wondering if the community has any suggestions to make this better. Especially, the way I’m getting the right data to upsert using a code block just before upserting and the way I’m checking if a sheet with the given name exists (this returns the whole data every time which could be improved (?)).
Also, any suggestions on handling the constants that I do at the beginning would be helpful.

Any other suggestions / improvements are welcome as well.

Thanks in advance for spending your time on this!

What is the error message (if any)?

Please share your workflow

Share the output returned by the last node

NA

Information on your n8n setup

  • n8n version: 1.77.3
  • Database (default: SQLite): default
  • n8n EXECUTIONS_PROCESS setting (default: own, main): default
  • Running n8n via (Docker, npm, n8n cloud, desktop app): podman
  • Operating system: ubuntu
2

Have you tried using AI to extract the data?
It’s a lot simpler and accepts very flexible input formats.

Your entire workflow could look like this:

Copy the information extractor node to your workflow and play around to learn how it works.

You would need an OpenAI API. Their prices are extremely cheap, so you would have no problem running that workflow many times for a very low price.

But you can also use Google Gemini, because it has a free tier.

:muscle: If my reply solves your problem, please remember to mark it as a solution.

3

Hey @shake,

Did this answer your question?

4

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