I built a fully automated client onboarding pipeline that kicks in the moment a new client submits an intake form. No manual steps. No welcome email to write. No folder to create. No team to brief. All of it — done in under 5 minutes.
The Problem I Wanted to Solve
Manual client onboarding is one of those hidden time drains. Writing a personalised welcome email, creating a Drive folder, generating a project brief, notifying the team, each step feels small but together they eat 45–90 minutes per client. And if you're busy, something always gets missed.
I wanted to learn how to wire together form submissions, AI writing, CRM updates, file creation, and team notifications into one seamless pipeline.
What Happens Automatically
Step 1 — Form Submission
Client submits a Typeform intake form. That single action triggers everything.
Step 2 — Claude Writes the Welcome Email
Claude API (claude-sonnet-4-5) reads the form data and writes a fully personalised welcome email — not a template, an actual tailored message.
Step 3 — Airtable Record Created
A new client record is created in Airtable with all intake details logged.
Step 4 — Welcome Email Sent
Gmail delivers the personalised welcome email to the client.
Step 5 — Google Drive Folder Created
A dedicated client folder is automatically created in Google Drive.
Step 6 — Claude Generates a Project Brief
Claude writes a structured project brief as a Google Doc inside the client folder — ready for the team to act on immediately.
Step 7 — Airtable Updated
The client record is updated with the Drive folder link for easy access.
Step 8 — Team Notified on Slack
The team receives a Slack notification with the client details, folder link, and project brief — everything they need in one message.
Results
- Onboarding time: from ~60 minutes manual → under 5 minutes automated
- Human effort after form submission: 0 minutes
- Handles unlimited simultaneous submissions without breaking a sweat
Stack
n8n · Claude API (claude-sonnet-4-5) · Typeform · Airtable · Gmail · Google Drive · Slack
What I Learned on Day 3
The most interesting challenge today was getting Claude to write content that felt genuinely personalised and not templated — twice in the same workflow. The welcome email and the project brief need completely different tones: warm and human for the client, structured and professional for the team.
That means two very different prompts, each pulling specific fields from the Typeform submission. Getting the data mapping right between Typeform → n8n → Claude took more iteration than I expected.
Biggest lesson: one workflow, multiple Claude calls — each prompt needs its own clear context and purpose or the output bleeds into the wrong tone.
🔗 Full workflow on GitHub → https://github.com/mbuguacessy-glitch/automated-client-onboarding
Day 3 of my 60-day public AI automation build challenge. Learning by shipping — every workflow documented openly.
57 more to go.
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