## Introduction
Recording sales calls is essential for many sales teams to review conversations, train representatives, and maintain records for compliance or analysis. However, managing and organizing these recordings manually can be time-consuming and error-prone, especially as call volume grows. Automating the saving and organization of sales call recordings frees your sales team to focus on closing deals rather than admin work.
In this article, we will walk through building a robust automation workflow using n8n — an open-source automation tool — to automatically save and organize sales call recordings from popular platforms. Whether your team uses Zoom, Google Meet, or a VoIP sales tool like HubSpot or Aircall, this guide will help you streamline how call recordings are handled and stored, saving your team hours every week.
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## Use Case and Benefits
**Problem:** Sales teams often record calls for quality assurance, training, or compliance. However, manually downloading, renaming, and organizing these recordings into specific folders or storage platforms is tedious and prone to errors.
**Who Benefits:**
– Sales Ops teams who maintain sales data
– Sales managers reviewing call performance
– Automation engineers building sales workflows
**Solution:** Automate the process such that every sales call recording is automatically fetched from the call platform, renamed with metadata (e.g., date, salesperson, prospect), and uploaded to a centralized storage (Google Drive, AWS S3, etc.).
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## Tools and Services Integrated
– **n8n:** Open-source automation platform to orchestrate the workflow
– **Zoom API (or Google Meet / VoIP API):** Source of sales call recordings
– **Google Drive / AWS S3 / Dropbox:** Cloud storage for saving recordings
– **Google Sheets (optional):** To log call metadata for tracking
– **Slack / Email (optional):** Notifications upon successful save
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## Workflow Overview
1. **Trigger:** The workflow begins on a scheduled interval (e.g., every hour) or via webhook triggered by the call platform after a recording is processed.
2. **Fetch Call Recordings:** Use the call platform’s API to list new call recordings.
3. **Filter / Check:** Determine which recordings are new (not saved yet) by comparing against a tracking sheet or database.
4. **Download Recordings:** Retrieve the recording file(s) via API.
5. **Rename & Organize:** Rename files using metadata (date, salesperson, prospect) and prepare them for upload.
6. **Upload to Storage:** Save renamed recordings to a cloud storage location.
7. **Log Metadata:** Update Google Sheets or CRM with recording details.
8. **Notify Team:** Send Slack message or email notification that recordings are saved.
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## Step-by-Step Tutorial
### Prerequisites
– n8n instance running (Cloud or Self-Hosted)
– API access to call platform (e.g., Zoom API credentials)
– Cloud storage account with API access (Google Drive example uses OAuth)
– Google Sheets for logging (optional)
– Slack app webhook URL (optional)
### Step 1: Set up the Trigger
**Option A: Scheduled Trigger**
– Use n8n’s “Cron” node to run the workflow every hour (or preferred interval).
**Option B: Webhook Trigger**
– Set up a Webhook node.
– Configure the call platform to send a webhook notification on recording completion to n8n.
> For simplicity, we’ll use the Cron node.
### Step 2: List New Recordings from Zoom
– Add a “HTTP Request” node to call Zoom’s ‘List Recordings’ API:
– Endpoint: `GET https://api.zoom.us/v2/users/{userId}/recordings`
– Scope the query with query parameters (e.g., ‘from’ and ‘to’ dates for recent calls).
– Provide OAuth access token in the Authorization header.
– This node outputs an array of recording metadata including recording start time, duration, participant info, and download URLs.
### Step 3: Filter Recordings That Are Unprocessed
– To avoid re-downloading recordings, track processed call IDs in Google Sheets (or a database).
– Use a “Google Sheets” node to read existing processed recording IDs.
– Use a “Set” or “IF” node to filter recordings by checking if their unique ID exists in the sheet.
– Alternatively, keep a persisted data store in n8n (like the credentials or workflow data) for quick checks.
### Step 4: Download Recording Files
– For each new recording, add a “HTTP Request” node to download the recording file using URLs in the Zoom response.
– Set “Response Format” to ‘File’.
– Store the output as a binary file in n8n.
### Step 5: Rename and Prepare Metadata
– Use a “Function” node to generate a clean filename, e.g., `SalesCall_{SalespersonName}_{Prospect}_{YYYYMMDD}.mp4`.
– Extract the metadata from API response (e.g., participant names could be in the meeting metadata).
– Store the filename as part of the binary data properties.
### Step 6: Upload to Cloud Storage
**Google Drive Example:**
– Use the “Google Drive” node.
– Select operation “Upload File”.
– Provide the renamed binary data as the file.
– Set the destination folder (e.g., `/Sales Calls/{YYYY}/{MM}/`).
**For AWS S3:**
– Use the HTTP Request node with AWS signed requests or n8n’s S3 node if available.
### Step 7: Log Calls in Google Sheets
– Add or update a row with recording metadata:
– Call ID
– Salesperson
– Prospect
– Date/time
– File URL in storage
– This maintains a running log and helps in filtering new recordings.
### Step 8: Notify the Sales Team
– Use “Slack” node to post a message to a sales channel,
– Example message: “New sales call recording saved for Prospect XYZ on 2024-06-01 by Salesperson ABC.”
– Optionally, use “Email” node to notify managers.
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## Common Errors and Tips for Robustness
– **API Rate Limits:** Zoom and other platforms impose limits. Handle rate limits by adding delays or retries in n8n.
– **Recording Availability Delay:** Recording may not be immediately available post-call; consider implementing a delay or retry logic.
– **Token Expiration:** Ensure OAuth tokens auto-refresh if applicable.
– **Error Handling:** Use n8n’s Error workflow features to catch API failures and notify support.
– **Filename Collisions:** Include unique IDs or timestamps in filenames to avoid overwrites.
– **Storage Quotas:** Monitor storage limits on Google Drive or AWS to prevent workflow failure.
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## How to Adapt and Scale This Workflow
– **Add Other Call Platforms:** Extend with Google Meet API or Aircall webhooks.
– **Integrate CRM:** Automatically update HubSpot or Salesforce with call recording links and metadata.
– **Advanced Metadata Extraction:** Use transcription services (e.g., AWS Transcribe) to add searchable transcripts.
– **Multi-region Storage:** Store recordings in regionally appropriate buckets for compliance.
– **Parallel Processing:** For high call volumes, split the workflow to process calls in batches or use n8n’s concurrency options.
– **Security:** Encrypt sensitive data and restrict access to storage.
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## Summary and Bonus Tip
Automating sales call recording saves significant manual effort and reduces errors in your sales operations. Using n8n, you can build scalable, customizable workflows integrating multiple APIs with minimal code.
**Bonus Tip:**
Embed meeting metadata and transcription links into your CRM using the same n8n workflow, enabling sales reps to access call insights directly from their contact records—further closing the loop between sales conversations and actionable data.
This automation not only boosts efficiency but also empowers sales teams with better tools to analyze and improve their performance.