One of my favourite little features in n8n is tucked away in Insights.
It’s the time saved number. This week mine says 113 hours, across 761 production executions, with a 1.3% failure rate and an average run time of 1.17 seconds per execution.
Zapier has a version of this too, BUT Zapier’s number is a guess. n8n’s is built from your own data.
When you set up a workflow in n8n, you tell it how long that task would have taken you manually. Not a generic industry average, your own honest estimate, based on how long it actually takes you to do that job by hand. Every time the workflow runs, n8n adds that number to the total.
If you’re automating your ServiceM8 workflows in n8n and you’ve never set the time saved estimate on your workflows, go and do it now. It takes thirty seconds per workflow, and it’s the difference between a vague feeling that automation is helping and an actual number you can point to.
(DISCLAIMER! These numbers seem high and that’s because they are.. off the back of this insight, I discovered that I’d created an n8n workflow that was checking for updates every 15 minutes and then claiming time saved, which ultimately wasted my number of monthly allowed ‘executions’ .. so i’ve now learnt from that and changed the automatic schedule to checking just a couple of times a day!) I’ll be posting another tip soon that shows you how to avoid the same issue 🙂…
Are you already using n8n? I’d love to hear what you’re automating – or what you wish you could automate.
Whether you use ServiceM8, run a trade business, or simply want to save time on repetitive admin, ask me about ready-made and custom n8n workflows. Drop a comment or send me a message and I’ll help you work out what’s possible.
Ready to try n8n? You can sign up using my partner link: https://hazelwhicher.co.uk/get/n8n
#WorkflowWednesday
