Daily Site Report & Variation Log
On site, unrecorded work is unpaid work. This workflow collects a short daily report from whoever is on site, files the photographs, logs weather delays with dates that stand up in a claim, and turns anything described as extra into a variation note sent to the client that evening — when it is still an easy conversation rather than an argument at final account.
What you get
Workflow blueprint
The full blueprint — every field mapping, example value and the written copy for each message — is included with purchase.
Getting it into Zapier
Build this one from the recipe. The blueprint gives you the exact trigger, action events and field mapping for all 6 steps, so it is a copy-and-paste job rather than a design job.
You need your own Zapier account. Zapier’s Free plan runs single-step Zaps only; multi-step Zaps need a paid plan, and Paths and Webhooks need Professional. How this works →
Not on Zapier?
An n8n workflow JSON ships with this template. Import it and all 6 steps arrive on the canvas wired in order, and 4 of the 6 nodes arrive with their fields already filled in — the subject lines, the message copy, the delays, the column names. Every step maps to a native n8n node, one of them by a different route — see below.
Google Forms has no n8n node at all, so that step arrives as a native Google Sheets node on the form’s linked responses sheet. It is named for what it is on the canvas rather than for the app it stands in for, and the sticky note under it opens by saying so — the field names are unchanged either way, but the account you connect is the $Google Sheets one.
What an import cannot carry is your credentials, and the IDs that only exist inside your own account — which spreadsheet, which channel, which board. Those stay in a sticky note under the node, listing what is already done so you do not retype it, and what is left so you can see it.
A Make-specific guide ships with this template: every module in order, every field value, and the concept translations that catch people out — filters live on the links between modules, and the schedule lives on the scenario rather than in a trigger module.
Self-hosted n8n has no per-task fee, which is worth knowing if this workflow runs at volume. Platform coverage →
Setup steps
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Configure this step using the field mapping in the blueprint.
Implementation notes
- The same-day email is the whole product. A variation raised on the day is a conversation; the same variation raised at final account is a dispute, and you usually lose it.
- Say explicitly that no work has been carried out on the item yet. Otherwise the note reads as an invoice for work already done and the client digs in.
- Log weather delays every day, including the days you lost nothing. A run of clear days is what makes a claimed rain day credible.
- Photographs need the date in the folder path, not just the file metadata. Metadata is stripped the first time somebody forwards them through a phone.