Triggering n8n Workflows

1. Triggering n8n Workflows

Welcome back! Now you're starting to get familiar with n8n's interface, we're going to look at how to kickstart workflows with triggers.

2. Triggers

n8n workflows are initiated by a trigger, which is a special node type that acts as the first domino in the chain. There are lots of different trigger nodes supported natively in n8n. There are triggers that can listen for incoming data from a database, Slack messages, Google calendar events and more, and these actions can be used to trigger your workflows. You can also use schedule triggers, so your workflow can execute on datetime conditions. You can even trigger one workflow with another! For now, we'll focus on two core trigger types: manual triggers and form triggers.

3. Trigger Types

The Manual Trigger is mainly used when building and testing workflows. It lets us run them instantly without waiting for outside input.

4. Trigger Types

The Form Trigger creates a pop-up form, that once filled-in, sends the data to the next node and executes it. This trigger is a great choice for user-initiated workflows like collecting feedback or sign-ups. Let's see them in action!

5. Manual trigger

Here, we have a workflow for fetching the latest currency exchange information from a public API and transforming it into an easily-readable form. This workflow is kickstarted using a manual trigger, which activates when we click "Execute Workflow" or run the Node itself. Notice that we can see when other nodes are active, and whether each runs successfully or throws an error. Here, everything ran successfully, so we can click into the final node to view the results: a nicely-formatted table of currency information.

6. Form trigger

In a different workflow, we're collecting competition entries using a form trigger, then filtering them to remove users that are ineligible based on age and location. Clicking into the form trigger, we can set the form title, the questions we'd like to ask, and the input types for each answer. We can also set particular questions as required or optional. When executed, the form will pop up, and we can fill it in with some sample information and press submit. Similar to the manual trigger, we can watch to see if the full workflow executes successfully. When it does, we can click into each node to check that it performed the actions as expected by comparing the input and output sections.

7. Let's practice!

We'll explore data transformations in more depth in the next video. For now, time to begin testing workflows with manual and form triggers!

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