AI & automation case study · Operations & Reporting

ERP Order Analytics & Reporting Automation

Scheduled order retrieval from a custom ERP, structured records in Airtable and a weekly performance summary posted to Discord.

In brief: An n8n workflow that pulls orders from a custom ERP API on a schedule, stores processing orders in Airtable, calculates weekly totals in JavaScript and posts a summary to the team's Discord channel.

Status: Delivered to client
Platform: n8n
Source: Custom ERP REST API
Storage: Airtable
Report: Discord, weekly

Business problem & solution

Why this workflow exists

Order data lived in the ERP, but nobody had a quick weekly view. Before every review someone had to export, filter and total orders by hand.

This workflow retrieves orders from the ERP on a schedule, keeps a clean Airtable record of orders still in processing, calculates weekly order counts and revenue in a JavaScript step and posts the summary to Discord — so the numbers are ready before the meeting starts.

Presented as portfolio work from our founder-led engineering team. Client names, commercial terms and business performance figures are not published.

Business problem

Weekly figures depend on someone remembering to export and calculate them.
Manual filtering and totalling introduce errors.
Operations have no lightweight, structured view of orders in progress.

The actual workflow

The workflow as built.

Click the image to open it full size and zoom in on individual nodes.

Simplified diagram

How it works, step by step.

An interactive walkthrough of the workflow. Select any step for details.

Simplified flow · ERP Order Analytics

Step 1 of 5

Schedule

The Schedule Trigger starts the run.

The delivered workflow calculates figures in JavaScript and does not include an AI step. AI-written commentary can be added on top of the calculated totals if required.

Node by node

What each node does.

ERP Order Analytics: n8n nodes and their roles
Node	Type	What it does
01Schedule Trigger	Schedule Trigger	Runs the workflow at the configured interval.
02HTTP Request	HTTP Request — GET	Calls the custom ERP API and returns the list of orders.
03If	If	Checks whether status equals 'processing' and splits the items into two branches.
04Edit Fields	Set / Edit Fields	Maps ERP fields to the Airtable schema.
05Airtable	Airtable — create record	Creates a structured record for each processing order.
06Code in JavaScript	Code	Aggregates the orders on the second branch into weekly totals — order count and revenue.
07Discord	Discord — send message	Posts the calculated summary to the team's channel.

Features

Capabilities delivered.

Scheduled order retrieval
A Schedule Trigger calls the custom ERP API with an HTTP GET request.
Filtering
An If node separates orders with status 'processing' from the rest.
Structured storage
Processing orders are mapped with Edit Fields and created as Airtable records.
Aggregation
A JavaScript Code node calculates weekly order totals and revenue.
Automated reporting
The weekly summary is posted to a Discord channel.

Tools & integrations

Built with

n8n
REST API
Airtable
JavaScript
Discord

Typical applications

Where this pattern fits.

Weekly sales and order reports from an ERP or e-commerce platform
Fulfilment backlog tracking
Management digests for Slack, Teams or email
Feeding a BI tool with clean, structured order data

Business benefits

What it changes.

Automated reporting
Weekly totals arrive without anyone exporting data.
Structured storage
Clean Airtable records are ready for further analysis.
Deterministic figures
Totals are calculated in code, so numbers are exact and auditable.
Easy to extend
An AI step can be added to write narrative commentary on top of the calculated figures.

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