## Introduction
Managing SaaS tools across an organization is a growing challenge for operations teams, especially in startups and scale-ups where tools proliferate quickly. Without proper tracking of who uses what, when, and how often, organizations risk overspending on unused licenses, potential security issues, and lack of visibility into tool adoption. Automating SaaS usage and access tracking empowers operations teams to maintain control, optimize costs, and ensure compliance effortlessly.
In this technical guide, we’ll build a comprehensive automation workflow with n8n to track SaaS tool usage and access. This workflow will integrate data from tools like Google Workspace Admin reports, LastPass Enterprise (or any SSO provider logs), and a central Google Sheets tracker. It will notify stakeholders via Slack when anomalous usage patterns or unauthorized accesses occur.
—
## Tools and Services Integrated
– **n8n**: Open-source, flexible workflow automation tool that orchestrates the process.
– **Google Workspace Admin Reports API**: Provides access logs and user activity reports.
– **LastPass Enterprise or SSO logs (via API or webhooks)**: Captures login/access events for SaaS applications.
– **Google Sheets**: Central repository for aggregated tool usage and access data.
– **Slack**: For real-time notifications and alerts.
—
## Use Case Overview
**Problem:** Operations teams need a reliable way to continuously track who accesses SaaS tools, frequency of usage, and detect unusual activity or inactive licenses.
**Benefit:** The automated workflow eliminates manual reporting, enhances security monitoring, and informs license optimization decisions.
**Scope:** This guide focuses on tracking SaaS tools accessed via Google Workspace and SSO logs, aggregating that data, and alerting on predefined conditions.
—
## Workflow Architecture and Data Flow
1. **Trigger**: Scheduled trigger in n8n running daily.
2. **Data Retrieval**:
– Pull Google Workspace user login and app usage reports for the last 24 hours via the Reports API node.
– Fetch SSO (e.g., LastPass) logs via REST API to capture SaaS application access events.
3. **Data Aggregation and Transformation**:
– Parse and combine logs to map user SaaS tool usage.
– Identify inactive users, new users, and irregular access patterns.
4. **Data Storage**:
– Append/update usage records in a Google Sheet structured by user, tool, last access date, and frequency.
5. **Alerting**:
– If unauthorized access or unusually high activity detected, send Slack notifications to security/operations channels.
6. **Reporting Output**:
– Summarize key insights at the end of each run for team review.
—
## Step-by-Step Technical Tutorial
### Prerequisites
1. Access to n8n instance (self-hosted or n8n.cloud).
2. API access and credentials for Google Workspace Admin Reports and your SSO provider.
3. Google Sheets API credentials with write access.
4. Slack Incoming Webhook or Bot credentials for notifications.
### Step 1: Set Up the Scheduled Trigger
– In n8n, add the **Cron** node.
– Configure it to run once daily at your preferred time (e.g., 1am UTC).
– This node triggers the workflow automatically every day.
### Step 2: Fetch Google Workspace Reports
– Add the **HTTP Request** node configured as follows:
– Method: GET
– URL: `https://admin.googleapis.com/admin/reports/v1/activity/users/all/applications/login` (replace with app-specific endpoints as necessary)
– Authentication: OAuth2 using your Google Workspace credentials
– Query Parameters:
– `startTime` and `endTime` covering the last 24 hours
– Optional filters for specific user groups or app usage
– Parse the JSON response to extract relevant fields: user email, timestamp, application name, event name.
### Step 3: Retrieve SSO / LastPass Access Logs
– Add another **HTTP Request** node:
– Method: GET
– Endpoint: The API endpoint your SSO provider exposes for login/access events
– Authentication: Bearer token or API key
– Query Parameters: filter by time, user, or app as available
– Parse and normalize this data to map user → SaaS tool → access timestamp.
### Step 4: Merge and Transform the Data
– Add a **Function** or **Code** node to combine data from both sources.
– For each user, create or update an entry with:
– Last access date per tool
– Total accesses in the last 7 and 30 days
– Flags for new users (first login) or inactive users
– This node should output a structured array designed for Google Sheets insertion.
### Step 5: Write to Google Sheets
– Add the **Google Sheets** node configured to:
– Connect to your designated spreadsheet and worksheet
– Use “Upsert” mode based on user email and app to avoid duplicates
– Map the transformed data fields to sheet columns like User Email, Tool Name, Last Access, Usage Count, Status
### Step 6: Check for Anomalies and Send Notifications
– Add a **Function** node to identify anomalies:
– Examples: unexpected login times, access from unusual locations (if data available), or large spike in usage
– Also detect inactive users whose last access was more than 30 days ago
– For any conditions met, branch to a **Slack** node configured with your webhook URL to send formatted alerts.
### Step 7: Summary Output
– Optionally, generate a daily summary message highlighting overall activity raw counts, number of inactive users, and any alerts sent.
– This can be sent via Slack or email using respective nodes.
—
## Common Errors and Tips for Robustness
– **API Rate Limits:** Ensure you handle Google and SSO API rate limits with a retry mechanism or appropriate delays.
– **Timezone Handling:** Always normalize timestamps to UTC or your organization’s timezone to avoid confusion.
– **Error Handling:** Use error workflow triggers in n8n to catch and log failures for troubleshooting.
– **Authentication Expiry:** Regularly refresh OAuth2 tokens and monitor for expired credentials.
– **Data Consistency:** Use unique keys when upserting to Google Sheets to prevent duplicate entries.
– **Security:** Store all credentials securely via n8n credentials manager and restrict access.
—
## How to Adapt and Scale the Workflow
– **Add More SaaS Integrations:** Extend the workflow with additional API nodes for other SaaS tools not covered by Google or your SSO logs.
– **Multi-team Segmentation:** Filter usage data per department or team by integrating your HR system or organizational directory.
– **Granular Access Control:** Integrate with your Identity Provider to correlate access permissions with actual usage.
– **Dashboards:** Connect the aggregated Google Sheets data to a BI tool (Google Data Studio, Metabase) for interactive visualization.
– **Real-time Monitoring:** Change triggers from cron to webhook/event driven for faster anomaly detection.
—
## Summary
Automating SaaS tool usage and access tracking with n8n empowers operations teams to maintain clear oversight over their growing tool ecosystem while reducing manual toil. This guide showed how to integrate Google Workspace reports, SSO logs, Google Sheets, and Slack into a coherent automated monitoring system.
By following these steps, your team can:
– Keep an up-to-date record of who uses which SaaS tools and when
– Detect anomalies and potential security risks early
– Provide operations and finance teams with reliable data to optimize SaaS licenses
– Scale the workflow over time as the SaaS landscape evolves
—
**Bonus Tip:**
For even deeper insights, consider enriching logs with IP address geolocation to detect unexpected access locations. This can be integrated via geolocation APIs within the n8n workflow for more proactive security monitoring.