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Every Friday, the system pulls the week's milestones and photos, drafts a progress update, and lands it in the builder's inbox for approval before it goes to the owner. Consistent updates, zero Sunday-night writing sessions.
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Client type: Residential builder running jobs with owner clients
The problem
Owners want weekly progress updates — and consistent communication is what separates a smooth job from a stressful one. But writing a proper update every Friday is the first thing to slip when the week's gone sideways. Updates become irregular, owners get anxious, and the "just checking in" phone calls start.
What I built
A scheduled n8n workflow that runs every Friday at 4pm:
- Reads the week's row from a Weekly Update Google Sheet — milestones achieved, milestones pending, risks and issues, next week's plan, photos folder link, project name, owner email
- Builds the photo list from the linked Drive folder so the update includes the week's progress photos
- Kimi AI drafts the owner update email in a warm, professional tone
- If the AI call fails, a fallback template still produces a clean update — the owner never gets nothing
- Human in the loop by design: with "Send to me first" switched on, the draft lands in the builder's inbox for review before anything goes to the owner. And if there's no data for the week, the builder gets an alert — the owner never gets a blank email.
Tools used
n8n · Google Sheets · Google Drive · Gmail · Moonshot AI (Kimi)
The outcome
- Owner updates go out every week, on time, without the Sunday-night writing session
- The builder keeps full control — nothing reaches the owner without review
- A bad week or a failed AI call degrades gracefully: fallback template or an alert, never a broken email to the client
Demo
🎥 Loom video demo — To follow
🎯 The Problem