Hey everyone! I’m just starting out with N8N and could use some guidance. I’m trying to build a tool that can read my Excel or Airtable sheet and answer questions about the data.
For example, I want to be able to ask things like:
- How many customers do we have?
- What’s the name of the first customer?
- And other similar queries…
The goal is to have the tool really understand and interpret the information in my spreadsheet. I’m not sure where to begin or what nodes to use in N8N to make this happen.
Has anyone done something like this before? Any tips or suggestions on how to approach this would be super helpful. Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer!
I’ve actually tackled a similar project recently. My approach was to use the ‘Spreadsheet File’ node for Excel or the ‘Airtable’ node for Airtable to import the data. Then, I set up a ‘Function’ node to process the information and create custom queries.
For natural language processing, I integrated the OpenAI API using the ‘OpenAI’ node. This allowed me to send user queries and get intelligent responses based on the data.
The trickiest part was structuring the data in a way that the AI could understand and respond accurately. I spent a good amount of time fine-tuning the prompts and ensuring the data was properly formatted.
It’s definitely a complex project, but totally doable with N8N. Just be prepared for some trial and error along the way!
I’ve implemented a similar solution using N8N. The key is to leverage the ‘HTTP Request’ node to fetch data from your Excel or Airtable API. Once you have the data, use the ‘Function’ node to parse and structure it. For query processing, I found success with the ‘Natural Language Processing’ node, which can interpret user questions.
To handle specific queries like counting customers or finding the first customer name, you’ll need to write custom JavaScript functions within the ‘Function’ node. This allows for flexible data manipulation and query execution.
Remember to secure your API keys and consider rate limiting to avoid overloading your data source. It took some iteration, but the end result was quite powerful for data analysis.
hey swiftcoder42, for excel data try using the ‘Microsoft Excel’ node to read ur sheet. then use ‘Function’ node to process the data. for queries, maybe integrate a natural language processing API? it’s not straightforward but could work. good luck with ur project!