Master 80% of n8n by Learning Just These 17 Nodes

In this video, I'm going to show you how you can master nit just by learning 17 notes. And these are the exact same ones that we use pretty much 80% of the time when building automations for clients. And honestly, these are probably the only ones that you'll ever need. And in case we haven't met, my name is Mikuel and over the past 12 months, I've helped over 40 businesses implement AI and automations and taught over 17,000 people in the process, all starting with zero technical knowledge. So if you're looking to fast track your learning with any 10 without having to go through a 100 tutorials, well let's dive in. So the first one is the trigger. Now the trigger is essentially the first step of the automation. Like what is that thing that starts the automation for us to then do the next steps? In any we have different types of triggers. Uh the first one is a manual trigger. So we can just execute the workflow manually. Now this right here is something that we use most of the times just for testing, right? Because we want to test something. So that has to be a first step and that's where we add a manual trigger. Now the second one is a schedule trigger. So this trigger right here is primarily used when you want to run the automation let's say once a week, once a month or at certain interval of time. So if I go in here, I can see that I can run it um in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and even custom. So this is cron, which you can put your maybe every 2 p.m. on a Tuesday or every 3 p.m. on a Friday of every month. and you have different settings that you can put so that you're able to um to run the automation at a very specific time of the month of the year of the week of the day. Right? So to give you a use case, let's say we had a content system. Let's say we wanted to generate content automatically every single day. What we would do here is we would go to trigger interval which is days 1 midnight and triggered min zero. And this is where we put this as the first step of the automation so that it runs every one day at midnight of the week. Right? Right? So, we're able to run the automation without us having to manually trigger it. And this is for the time trigger. And then we have the type form trigger. Now, this is just to show you an example of a trigger that is not native to any. These two are native to N10, which means that N10 owns those nodes. But in this case, type form is not any. It's a different platform. And so, Typeform itself is a platform that generates forms. So, we can generate forms. And this trigger right here starts whenever someone fills out the hiring form in this case. So I have the form pulled out here which is a form that is connected to this type from trigger and what happens is that whenever someone fills out the form this sends a signal to this node because it's an onapp trigger. Uh that will allow us to then be notified and start the automation. So I'm going to press exit workflow. As you can see now this is waiting for you to create an event in type form which is waiting for me to fill out the form. I'm going to press submit and as you can see here this is now triggered and we got the data the name the email the phone number and location as well. Right? So this essentially is an onapp trigger which means that it triggers whenever an single app starts something or whenever something happens within an app that we can all find right here. Add another trigger. We have all these triggers and the on app event is the one that you can use for whatever it is. So these are all different softwares that can be the first step of the automation that triggers whenever something happens within that software. Now the next part of the nodes are going to be storage solutions. Now, storage solutions is just a fancy way to say we use nodes that allow us to store information in them, right? And so, typically we use Google Sheets, we can use Air Table, we can use Notion, we can use Enit's new native data tables, which only came out a few days ago in order to store information. This could be a simple Google sheet that looks like this, which has full name, email address, location, and phone, but could also mean a data table within Nitn, which has name, email, phone number, and location, which is the exact same. The only difference is that one is stored in Nitn and the other one is stored in Google Sheets. So let me show you exactly what I mean here. Let me put the um manual execution here and I can see that inside I am adding a row. So append row means I'm adding a row in the N10 17 nodes which is the name of the Google sheet right here and I'm putting the first name or the full name as Mikatory the email is this and the location is this. I can press execute workflow which will now run the step right here and it will add the row into the Google sheet which will be mik email and uh location as well and I can also add the phone which you can also add by refreshing and let me add let's do 1 555 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 and if I execute the step again I can now see that I will have a new row that will be added here with email location and this as well. Now the reason why it gave us an error is because Google sheet doesn't like when you put plus signs or equal signs and so on because these are native uh equations within Google Sheets. Uh but you get the gist here. You just store information into Google sheet. The second one is within the niten data tables. So let me connect this. And in this case we do the exact same thing. It will be new people because that is the name of the database. And we're adding the first name or the name as mik authority my email my phone number and location as well. And if I press execute step, I can see that now it was successful. And if I go here and I refresh, I can now see that the data was added here. Full name, email, phone number, and location as well. Now, the amazing thing is that once you master Google Sheets and Nit's native data tables, you can pretty much use Air Table, you can use Notion, you can use Asana, ClickUp, all these places where you store information, they're all very, very similar, right? So, if you understand one, the setup will be very, very similar for the other ones. All right? So now we get to the universal data processing. So here is where we manipulate data, right? Manipulate data just means that we take some sort of data that comes in and then we structure it in a way where it makes sense for us to structure it in. Now in this case I want to take the um manual execution here. I'm going to attach it here. And I can see that inside the edit node if I execute the step I can see that I have an array which is basically a list of people's uh information. So we have name, email, phone number and location. David Smith, David Smith, Emily Chan, Carlos Ramirez, and Asia Khan. And these are basically giving me the different pieces of information. Now, the only problem with this is that let's say we want to add this to our Google sheet. We can't because this is an array, which means that it's inside this right here. So, this is where the split out comes in. So, what this means is that if you want to process each name individually, right? If you want to process this right here individually, then this right here, then this right here, and this right here, and this right here as well, then we have to split them out. We have to take them, as you can see by the diagram here, it's taking them, which is a singular thing, and then it's splitting them out based on the amount of items that are in the array. So, let me just show you. Let me just run this right here. And let me show you that now we have five items. So, as you can see here, it went from one item, which is the array, to five items. And so what we're doing here is we're processing each person's details individually through the automation in the next steps. And this is splitting out. So this is when you have an array and you want to split out each item of that array. Now aggregate right here is the exact opposite. As you can see the diagrams are opposites. And so what we do here is just bring it back to the way it was before. Right? And if I press execute step I can see that now I have the array that is back there which is one item. So you can see we have one item, five items and one item as well. Now, typically you would use split out whenever you have because a lot of the times we get data all within the same array. We get a bunch of details, contacts and so on all within one singular item. And so what we want to do is go inside that item and take them out of each one and process them individually in case you want to add them individually to let's say a native data table or even a Google sheet, right? You have to process each one individually for it to actually make sense to add them to a database or whatever it is that you want to do. Whilst this node right here basically when we have a lot of information that is a lot of items and we want to put them all together smash them all together to then send them through to the next steps right so it's aggregating data so it's not everywhere it's not in different places it's all within one place then we get on to the logic which is if so this is saying if this equals to this then it's true if not it's false so if I say in this case let me just uh take this out uh there we go right here so let me say if the name contains um contains Sarah which should only be one name then we send it through the true route right so if I go here I can now see that only one went through here and the other ones went through here now this is great because automation again is logic so if you want to send the automation in different ways based on whether something is true or false then you can use the if node right here now the switch node is a bit different because it gives you more flexibility right let me show you exactly what I mean. Let me say right here inside I have options to basically route the automation. So I can say if the name equals to Sarah Johnson if the name equals David Smith then we can rename the output to Sarah rename the output to David. And what this will do is that it will run through every single one and the ones that are Sarah or Sarah Smith in this case. Sarah Smith, Sarah Johnson, it will send them through Sarah and if it's David Smith, then it will send it through David. So if I run this, I can see that we only have one item and one item here because those are the only ones that applied to that logic. And so how is this different from if? Well, if only gives you the opportunity to add conditions, but don't add more than true or false options. Whilst here you can put as many options as you want. And this is great because you could have a use case where you have emails. You categorize the emails based on whether they're FAQ, whether they are uh promotional, whether they are just normal, whether they are something else. And an AI categorizes it. And then you can use a switch node to then say if the email is FAQ, then you send it this way. If it's something else, then you send it this way. If it's something else as well, because you can keep adding root rules. You can say if this equals to whatever just hello you can rename it to FAQ and this will be another option right and you can do as many options as you want which is amazing because that allows us to be able to route the automation based on the type of input or the output that we get in the previous step. All right then we have the code node. Now the code node is amazing uh because it allows us to be able to do a lot of things at once and code is one of the things that again a lot of no code platforms don't have because in the name no code uh but the fact that Niten added the code option here made it so much easier for us to be able to to transform information from unstructured to structured in the easiest way possible and it's very very fast. Yeah. So let's say we have the array here which is the exact same as we had before which are just a bunch of names that are all uh within the same array and we can process each one individually. Now what we can do with a code node using code and by the way if you're asking how did you write the code I just said split out the items from the array and the array is this and then if I run this I can see that now really quick it uh split out the items in five different um separately. So now we can go through five items individually. Now this did the same function as this. So this wouldn't make a lot of sense, but if you have something a lot more complex and you need the data to be transformed in a way where it would take you seven or eight different nodes, then you can do it all within the code node. Now, I'm not going to get into too detail about this because again, we're all here to not write code, right? Uh but just know that you have this option to be able to write code with any and it makes it a lot easier to do more complex stuff. You won't really need them for most of the time, but just knowing that you have the option there to use gives us a lot more flexibility when we're building automations. And then we have the merge node. So let me actually set this up. All right. So for the merge node, what I did is I put two different fields. One is hello yo and then the other one is hello ciao. And when I run this automation, it will run this one first and then it will run this one. And let's say I put a wait node here. I can put two two seconds just for it to wait 2 seconds. I can show you that this right here will run first and then it will run this one. Right? Now let's say that we had an automation where we had to run this and then we wanted to run this and then we wanted to go right without us having to go through here first and run the whole automation and then run through here first. Now let's say that we had an automation that we start here and it goes two different ways but then we want to aggregate the data. We want to send the data in the same way as two different inputs input one and input two to then be able to take both pieces of information to then be able to go to the next steps. So that's exactly what the merge node does. If I go here, I can see also I can add more inputs. So if I press four, it basically uh it can it can intake more inputs at the same time. In this case, I can do two. I can execute the step. And now we can see that we got two items, one is yo and one is cha. So what it's doing here, it's it's aggregating both of them together. Now there are other options as well um to combine to then SQL query. So we can query different things or different data points and then we can also choose a branch. Now honestly the one we're mostly going to use is going to be combine and it's going to be append. Now append in this case will be output each item individually and combine is taking these two and just putting them all in the same sort of array that you can use for the next steps. Now here's a system that I built that uses the merge nodes three different ones. Uh and the way that this works is that we have um the length post which is made the Facebook post which was made and then we want to merge them. So we have the Facebook post and the LinkedIn post and then we have the Twitter post which is made, the article which is made and then we're merging these two together as well to then finally merge all four things together. So we can directly send them to the Google sheet. And the reason why we're merging them is because if we run each one individually then we would have to set up a new automation for each row at a single time to add them to the Google sheet which we can actually just remove by just merging them all together in the same sort of structured way as different items to then send them to the Google sheet. So the next nodes right here are going to be connectivity and API. Now API is the most important skill when it comes to automation. And if you haven't watched my video about fundamentals of API, just watch it up here. U but it is the reason why apps get to talk to other apps, right? It's the reason why this app right here can talk to an intent, but this app right here can talk to this one, right? Or we can just talk to each other um in different ways. So in this case, the first node that we have to learn is the HTTP request. Now this is one of the most powerful nodes in any 10en because when we go here and I go to action app. So this is taking an action within a single app. We can see that we don't have an infinite amount of nodes right like we can stop here and then what what if we have a software that we want to use but we can't find it here. What do we do then? Well in this case we use the HTTP request. So let's say I wanted to use the free weather API which gave me the API of the weather. And if I go here to end, I can't see any app that's called free weather API. So what I have to do is I have to set up the HTTP request of the free weather API, which I can find in the documentation right here. By the way, I covered this in the API fundamentals video. So if this makes no sense to you, please go watch that video cuz it will help a lot. Um, but this right here is the API documentation, which is essentially a documentation which allows you to see exactly what you can automate and what you cannot automate within a software and also how to set up the automation. And so by looking at this um documentation here, I was able to set up the um the automation of the weather API which looks at the temperature in London right now. And if I execute the step, I can see that now I'm still able to actually run the automation. I was still able to use the software without having to use these softares here which are already pre-made by 10. And you can see here we have the different outputs. So London, we have the temperature, degrees in Celsius, Fahrenheit, and different other informations as well. Then we have web hooks right here. Now, web hooks are a way for us to get notified when something happens. So, let's say someone fills out a form. Well, it sends the data to the web hook. You remember this right here, the type form trigger. Well, behind the type form trigger is actually a web hook which allows us to be able to get notified when something happens. Well, in that case, it's whenever the form is being submitted, it sends the data to the web hook through an API. Right? So, right here we have the test URL which is used for testing and production URL which is used when the automation is set to active. And then we have the different type of HTTP method which again is very similar to there because we have post we have all these options and these are the same ones that we have here. And then we have the path which is just the way that we uh that we name the URL. And then this right here is a thing that you would connect to the software itself to then be able for us to get notified when something happens within that software. And respond to web hook will be the thing that will then respond back to the server that we got the information from. Now, to show you exactly how it works, what I'm going to do is use a software called Postman API, which allows us to send example uh test data to the web hook, right? I'm going to go in here, copy this, make sure you change this to post request, and then I'm going to paste this here. Make sure this is the post request as well. And then the body will be what is the thing that we're sending the web hook. In this case, let's just do full name, my name. Let me run this here. I want to press send. This will now start the workflow. As you can see here, now we started the workflow and we sent the full name here which is the body, right? And this is how we send information from one server to another through a web hook. Now let's say I had this connected. Now all I have to do here is I have to change this to using respond to web hook node. And here um what we can do is we can just respond with workflow has finished. And so when I run this, I send this here. I can see that now we get the data workflow has finished. Now this is amazing when we are sending data to a software or to a web hook in this case and we want to get something back. So let's say we send the signup link to a user in some sort of software. He signs up, we get something back. Lastly, it would be the AI integration. So this is one of the ones that are most uh commonly used. Um first one is the AI node. So this is just to create something with AI. So in this case we can say create a LinkedIn post about life and here we have our openi connected the resource is text the operation which is the action that we're taking is good uh the model it can be um you have a list of models here you can use GPT4 or latest or you can use whatever you want and then you have the prompts right here the prompts there are three different prompts that you can write the first one is a system prompt the system prompt is a prompt that you tell the AI uh you give it an identity so you are a helpful intelligent XY YZ assistant. Then you have user. So user is when you tell it to do something. So your task is to do XYZ. And assistant is when you give it some examples. In this case, let's keep it simple. I'm going to press execute step. And this will now create a LinkedIn post about life. And as you can see, sure, here's a thoughtful and professional LinkedIn post about life. And then it gives me a whole LinkedIn post that we can then use. Now this AI step is used whenever we want to have some sort of data or some sort of input sent to AI just like we would on chat GBT. automatically and then give us the output for content for any structured data that you want structured for anything pretty much that you can think of AI playing a role in the automation just as a linear thing for it to do just that task in specific only that task and then we have the AI agent if you haven't watched my AI agent 101 video make sure to watch it up here uh it explains exactly how you can build your first AI agent from scratch using N10 but the AI agent is the reason probably the reason why uh N10 blew up so fast is because it had now the um opportunity for us to used something that was connected to AI that could think through or that could remember the different conversation we had but that was also uh hooked up to different tools. So in this case if you scroll down we can see that we hook it up to Gmail, we can hook it up to Air Table, we can hook it up to well pretty much anything. Uh we have all these different softwares that we can use to then be able to connect it to the AI agent for it to actually take action. And a good thing is that the Gmail tool can be connected and the air table tool can be connected and the let's say notion tool can be connected and you can have as many connections as you want and this acts as a personal assistant that allow us to be able to take action on different things based on the input that we give it. So in this case what it would look like is we would have a trigger which would be usually would be an on chat message which means that we're chatting with the AI agent itself. And if I open chat, I can now see that I can speak to the actual AI agent. Something that you can't do with the AI step. So I can say hello. What this will do is that it will then talk to its AI. It will remember the conversation and then bring it back. It's sort of like a person that we're talking to. And the good thing is that the person itself has access to our software which is amazing because now it can take action on our behalf based on the input that we give it. So if we say draft an email, it will then go to the Gmail tool and then do its thing. Same thing with air tableable and same thing with motion. And the use case that you can think of this is pretty much anything any task that you want a singular input data store. So you basically have let's say one chat message right where you have one place and through a series of inputs. So through a series of send an email Gmail send an air table or create a notion task or whatever it is it takes actions in different softwares without us having to create a new automation for every single action that we want to take. All right. And if you want the full blueprint to this end so you can always come back to it as a resource. Make sure to check out the first link down below which will take you to my free school community right here. You can go to the classroom section. You can go to the templates vault and you will see the latest video which will be in this case uh 17 or 18 nodes to master 10. You can then press this button right here to download the Nitan automation blueprint and import it into your own account. And if you have no clue how to do that, no worries at all. You can always watch the tutorial right here which will show you step by step how to do it. And if you apply and you get in, you also get access to the AI automations 101 course, which is a very, very comprehensive guide that takes you from a real beginner in AI automation to someone who's actually able and willing to uh build automations for themselves, for other businesses. The only catch is not everybody gets in. So, please put some thoughts into your answers when you apply. So, that marks the end of the video. And if you're someone who's been building with Nitn and now actually want to go out and sell to businesses and apply this to a business use case, then make sure to check out this video on the screen where I show you 10 proven business use cases where you can apply AI agents and AI workflows within an end within sales, marketing, product, and service delivery. With that being said, I hope you found value from this video and I'll see you in the next