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Automation

Workflow Automation System

Unified Operations Orchestration

A consolidated orchestration layer replacing scattered scripts and disconnected no-code scenarios with monitored, recoverable workflows.

  • n8n
  • Node.js
  • PostgreSQL
  • Make
  • Docker
Abstract orchestration diagram showing branching workflow paths and retry loops

Overview

Project Overview

Automation had grown organically across four platforms, several personal accounts and a handful of scheduled scripts. Nothing was versioned, failures were silent, and the person who built most of it had left. We rebuilt the estate as one orchestrated system with version control, retries, dead-letter handling and alerting — and documented every workflow so the team can maintain it themselves.

Services provided

  • Workflow Automation
  • CRM & API Integrations
Client
Confidential — e-commerce operations group
Industry
E-commerce & Retail
Timeline
7 weeks
Year
2024
Platforms
Automation platform
Team
2 engineers, 1 delivery lead

Challenge

The Challenge

Nobody could answer what automation existed, where it ran or whether it had worked last night. Failures surfaced when a customer complained.

  • Automation was spread across four platforms, some of it in personal accounts.

  • No version history, so a broken change could not be identified or rolled back.

  • Failures were silent; the first signal was usually a customer or a missing record.

  • Retries were unsafe, so operators avoided them and fixed things by hand instead.

Solution

What We Built

We inventoried everything, rebuilt it on one self-hosted orchestrator, and treated workflows as software: versioned, reviewed, deployed and monitored.

  • Audited and documented every existing automation before migrating any of it.

  • Consolidated onto self-hosted n8n with definitions in git and deployment through CI.

  • Made every step idempotent so retries and replays are safe by construction.

  • Added a dead-letter queue with full payload capture and one-click replay.

  • Wired alerting to the owning team with runbooks written for each failure mode.

Capabilities

Key Features

What Workflow Automation System does in day-to-day use.

  • Version-controlled workflows

    Every workflow definition lives in git and deploys through the same pipeline as application code.

  • Idempotent execution

    Idempotency keys throughout, so a retry can never double-charge, double-send or double-create.

  • Dead-letter handling

    Failed runs are captured with full payload and can be replayed once the cause is fixed.

  • Rate-limit awareness

    Per-integration throttling and exponential backoff so third-party limits degrade rather than break.

  • Operational alerting

    Failures route to the responsible team with a written runbook attached to the notification.

  • Run observability

    Every execution searchable by entity, with timing, payload and outcome retained.

Stack

Technology Stack

The tools this system runs on, grouped by the role they play.

  • Orchestration

    • n8n (self-hosted)
    • Make
  • Backend

    • Node.js
    • TypeScript
    • Queue workers
  • Data

    • PostgreSQL
    • Redis
  • Integrations

    • REST
    • Webhooks
    • GoHighLevel
    • Zapier
  • Infrastructure

    • Docker
    • GitHub Actions
    • Uptime monitoring

Architecture

How It Works

The path a single request takes through the system, end to end.

    TRIGGER01

    Event received

    Webhook, schedule or queue message enters the orchestrator.

    VALIDATE02

    Contract check

    Payload validated and assigned an idempotency key before any side effect.

    EXECUTE03

    Run steps

    Steps execute with per-integration throttling and backoff.

    RECOVER04

    Retry or park

    Transient failures retry; permanent ones land in the dead-letter queue.

    NOTIFY05

    Alert & log

    Outcome recorded, owning team alerted with the relevant runbook.

Outcome

Results

What changed for the business after launch.

  • 4 → 1

    Platforms consolidated

    One orchestrator, one deployment path, one place to look.

  • 99.6%

    Workflow success rate

    Measured over the first quarter after migration.

  • < 3 min

    Mean time to detection

    Alerting replaced customer reports as the first failure signal.

  • 31

    Workflows documented

    Each with an owner, a diagram and a recovery runbook.

Interface

A Closer Look

Screens from the delivered system.

  • Workflow orchestration overview
    Consolidated workflow inventory with ownership and status.
  • Dead letter queue and replay interface
    Dead-letter queue with full payload capture and replay.
  • Run history and alerting dashboard
    Run history, timing and alert routing per workflow.

More work

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