## Introduction
In fast-moving product teams, keeping the marketing department informed about software release statuses is crucial for coordinated campaigns, launch announcements, and customer communications. Manual updates can be slow, prone to errors, and inefficient, especially when multiple releases happen frequently. Automating the notification of release status saves time, increases accuracy, and ensures marketing teams are always aligned with the product schedule.
This article provides a detailed, step-by-step tutorial to build an automation workflow using n8n – a powerful, open-source automation tool – to notify your marketing team whenever a product release status is updated. This guide targets product teams, automation engineers, and operations specialists who want to streamline cross-department communication.
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## Problem Solved and Beneficiaries
### Problem
Marketing teams often rely on product managers or engineers to manually communicate when new releases are deployed, delayed, or rolled back. This can lead to delays, inconsistent messaging, or missed marketing windows.
### Who Benefits
– **Product teams** reduce manual notification overhead.
– **Marketing teams** receive timely, structured updates.
– **Operations teams** gain a reliable communication channel without extra overhead.
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## Tools and Services Integrated
– **n8n:** Core automation platform to orchestrate the workflow.
– **GitHub or GitLab API:** To track release status or tags (or alternatively, a project management tool API like Jira, depending on your release process).
– **Slack:** To notify the marketing team in a dedicated channel.
– **Google Sheets:** Optional, to log release status history for reporting.
For this tutorial, we assume GitHub Releases as the trigger source and Slack for notifications.
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## Technical Tutorial
### Overview of the Workflow
1. **Trigger:** Poll GitHub Releases API at a scheduled interval to detect new or updated releases.
2. **Filter:** Identify if there is a new release or a change in release status.
3. **Notify:** Send structured notification to Marketing on Slack.
4. **Log:** (Optional) Append release details to Google Sheets for tracking.
### Prerequisites
– n8n instance (cloud or self-hosted)
– GitHub Personal Access Token with repo read permissions
– Slack Incoming Webhook URL or Slack app OAuth Access Token
– (Optional) Google Sheets credentials set up in n8n
### Step 1: Create the Trigger Node
– Use the **Cron** node in n8n to run the workflow at desired intervals (e.g., every hour).
##### Configuration:
– Set schedule to hourly or per your release frequency.
### Step 2: Fetch Latest Releases from GitHub
– Add the **HTTP Request** node.
– Method: GET
– URL: `https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/releases`
– Authentication: Bearer token using the GitHub Personal Access Token.
##### Important Headers:
– `Accept: application/vnd.github.v3+json`
This returns an array of releases sorted by creation date.
### Step 3: Compare with Previously Known Release
Since GitHub API returns all releases, we must detect if there is a new release or status update:
– Use **IF** or **Function** node to compare fetched release data with previously seen release data.
– Store the last release ID or Tag name in [n8n’s Persistent Data](https://docs.n8n.io/nodes/n8n-nodes-base.set/), or alternatively, in Google Sheets or an external DB.
##### Logic:
– If new release ID/tag differs from stored value, proceed.
– Else, stop workflow.
### Step 4: Extract Release Details
– Use a **Set** or **Function** node to extract relevant fields:
– Release Name
– Tag Name
– Published Date
– Release Notes (body)
– Status (e.g., pre-release or full release)
### Step 5: Format the Slack Message
– Use a **Set** node to create a JSON object following Slack message formatting.
Example Slack message JSON:
“`json
{
“text”: “*New Product Release Published!*”,
“attachments”: [
{
“color”: “#36a64f”,
“title”: “{{ $json[“release_name”] }}”,
“title_link”: “https://github.com/{owner}/{repo}/releases/tag/{{ $json[“tag_name”] }}”,
“text”: “{{ $json[“body”] }}”,
“fields”: [
{
“title”: “Published At”,
“value”: “{{ $json[“published_at”] }}”,
“short”: true
},
{
“title”: “Status”,
“value”: “{{ $json[“prerelease”] ? ‘Pre-Release’ : ‘Release’ }}”,
“short”: true
}
]
}
]
}
“`
Replace placeholders accordingly.
### Step 6: Send Notification to Slack
– Use the **Slack** node or **HTTP Request** node:
– Method: POST
– URL: Slack Incoming Webhook URL
– Headers: Content-Type: application/json
– Body: The JSON formatted message
### Step 7: (Optional) Log to Google Sheets
– Use the **Google Sheets** node to append a new row with release metadata:
– Release Name
– Tag
– Published Date
– Status
This step helps in keeping historical records and auditing.
### Step 8: Update Stored Release ID
– After successful notification, update the stored last release ID/tag.
– Use the **Set** node or n8n Credentials/Database to persist this info for next comparison.
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## Common Errors and Tips
– **API Rate Limits:** GitHub API has rate limits; ensure your token has appropriate scopes and monitor rate limit headers.
– **Authentication Errors:** Double check tokens and webhook URLs.
– **Duplicate Notifications:** Properly handle persistence of last processed release to avoid duplicates.
– **Slack Formatting:** Use Slack’s Block Kit or Attachment JSON correctly; test messages separately.
– **Network Failures:** Add error handling in n8n to retry failed API requests.
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## Adapting and Scaling
– Replace GitHub with any release management tool (Jira, Azure DevOps) by changing API requests.
– Add multiple notification channels (email, SMS) by adding more nodes.
– Integrate conditional logic to adjust messages based on release types (major, minor, patch).
– Use environment variables in n8n for tokens and URLs to easily switch environments.
– For large release volumes, optimize polling interval and use webhooks where possible (e.g., GitHub Webhooks triggering n8n).
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## Summary
Automating the communication of release status from the product team to marketing using n8n helps reduce manual work, improves accuracy, and speeds up coordination. By polling the GitHub Releases API, detecting changes, and pushing formatted notifications to Slack and optionally logging in Google Sheets, teams stay informed and can act swiftly.
### Bonus Tip
Set up **GitHub Webhooks** to trigger n8n workflows in real-time when releases are published, eliminating the need for polling and further reducing latency in notifications.