Scheduled trigger
The workflow runs on a scheduled trigger every hour to check for new purchase request emails.
About this template
What this workflow does
Automatically process PDF purchase requests from email, extract SKUs using AI, analyze historical purchase orders in Zoho Books to recommend the best vendor for each item, and notify the procurement team via Microsoft Teams.
Key benefits
- AI-powered vendor selection
- Automated purchase request processing
- Data-driven procurement decisions
- Instant team notifications
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No triggers for Gmail.
Inside the flow
How the template works
appse ai runs this workflow end to end for Gmail — automatically, every single day. Here is exactly what happens when this template runs.
Search for purchase request emails in Gmail
Searches Gmail for unread emails with subject containing 'Purchase Request' that have attachments.
Decision: Does the email exist?
Checks if a matching email was found by verifying the existence of the email ID.
Get email details and attachment from Gmail
Retrieves the full email message details and downloads the PDF attachment from the purchase request email.
Decode attachment into text
A Base64 Decode node converts the PDF attachment data into readable text for AI processing.
AI extracts SKUs and quantities via OpenAI
OpenAI (GPT-4o-mini) acts as a purchase professional to identify and extract SKUs and their quantities from the decoded PDF text, returning a structured JSON list of valid SKUs with quantities greater than zero.
Parse and split SKU data
A JSON Converter parses the AI response, and a Splitter node separates the list into individual SKU records for processing.
Find items by SKU in Zoho Books
Looks up each SKU in Zoho Books to find the matching item and retrieve item details.
Search purchase orders for each item in Zoho Books
Searches Zoho Books for existing purchase orders associated with each item to build a history of vendor pricing and delivery data.
Decision: Do purchase orders exist for the item?
Checks if any purchase orders exist for the item by verifying the existence of a purchase order ID.
Split and aggregate purchase order data
A Splitter node separates individual purchase orders, and an Aggregator compiles a collection of all purchase order data including delivery dates and item prices for analysis.
AI analyzes best vendor via OpenAI
OpenAI (GPT-4.1) analyzes past purchase orders to identify the best vendor for each item based on lowest price offered and fastest delivery time, using the difference between delivery date and order date.
Parse and split vendor recommendations
A JSON Converter parses the AI vendor recommendation response, and a Splitter node separates the results for each item.
Send vendor recommendation to Microsoft Teams
Sends a message to a Microsoft Teams channel with the recommended vendor for each item, including the item name and SKU.
Business benefits
More than moving data between apps — here is the measurable impact this automation delivers for your team.
01
AI-powered vendor selection
Leverages OpenAI to analyze historical purchase order data and recommend the best vendor based on lowest price and fastest delivery for each item.
02
Automated purchase request processing
Automatically reads PDF purchase requests from email, extracts SKUs and quantities using AI, and processes them without manual data entry.
03
Data-driven procurement decisions
Analyzes past purchase orders from Zoho Books to provide objective vendor recommendations backed by actual pricing and delivery performance.
04
Instant team notifications
Delivers vendor recommendations directly to a Microsoft Teams channel, enabling procurement teams to act quickly on purchase requests.
05
Reduced procurement cycle time
Eliminates manual vendor research and comparison by automating the entire workflow from email receipt to vendor recommendation.
01
AI-powered vendor selection
Leverages OpenAI to analyze historical purchase order data and recommend the best vendor based on lowest price and fastest delivery for each item.
02
Automated purchase request processing
Automatically reads PDF purchase requests from email, extracts SKUs and quantities using AI, and processes them without manual data entry.
03
Data-driven procurement decisions
Analyzes past purchase orders from Zoho Books to provide objective vendor recommendations backed by actual pricing and delivery performance.
04
Instant team notifications
Delivers vendor recommendations directly to a Microsoft Teams channel, enabling procurement teams to act quickly on purchase requests.
05
Reduced procurement cycle time
Eliminates manual vendor research and comparison by automating the entire workflow from email receipt to vendor recommendation.
Questions & answers
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about this template before you deploy it.
How does the workflow identify the best vendor?
OpenAI (GPT-4.1) analyzes past purchase orders from Zoho Books for each item, comparing vendor pricing and delivery performance. It selects the vendor who offered the lowest price and fastest delivery based on the difference between delivery date and order date.
What format should the purchase request email be in?
How often does the workflow check for new purchase requests?
What happens if no purchase orders exist for an item?
Where are the vendor recommendations delivered?
Why businesses love appse ai
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Their quick updates and improvements have boosted our productivity, allowing us to focus on making better products. Highly recommend for any manufacturer seeking efficiency.
Hans Engstrom
Operations Manager, Christiana Bikes
appse ai enabled us to automate processes and achieve real-time efficiency with their ready-to-use solution. Their responsive support and customizations were exactly what we needed.
Peter Grueterich
President, Bernardo 1946
Rapidly growing companies, to get to that level of establishment, you need a solution like appse ai to bridge the connections between disparate systems.
Robert Donnelly
CEO and Co-Founder, Nine Line
The platform syncs data between our applications and it simply just works. This saved us a lot of time we used to spend manually synchronizing data from one system to another.
Sankar Thiagasamudram
Founder and CEO
Their quick updates and improvements have boosted our productivity, allowing us to focus on making better products. Highly recommend for any manufacturer seeking efficiency.
Hans Engstrom
Operations Manager, Christiana Bikes
appse ai enabled us to automate processes and achieve real-time efficiency with their ready-to-use solution. Their responsive support and customizations were exactly what we needed.
Peter Grueterich
President, Bernardo 1946
Rapidly growing companies, to get to that level of establishment, you need a solution like appse ai to bridge the connections between disparate systems.
Robert Donnelly
CEO and Co-Founder, Nine Line
The platform syncs data between our applications and it simply just works. This saved us a lot of time we used to spend manually synchronizing data from one system to another.
Sankar Thiagasamudram
Founder and CEO
appse ai helped us to manage our inventory and invoices in SAP and WooCommerce. With appse ai our job is much easy as everything is automated and we have better control on our inventory.
Kaywan Pour
Niagara Warenhandels GmbH
appse ai is making our operations easy! They make the customer experience much better. It costs us less human effort to proceed our orders.
Ramez Tacrity
Technical Sales Specialist, Digitech
I was impressed by how easy appse ai is to use and their ability to customize the platform to meet our clients specific requirements.
Vainick Oliveri
Golden Toys
appse ai transformed our business by automating the sync between SAP Business One and WooCommerce. What used to be a time-consuming, manual process is now seamless. We add products in SAP, and everything syncs automatically to the website.
Maher Ataya
Founder, Italparts SRL & Italparts LLC
appse ai helped us to manage our inventory and invoices in SAP and WooCommerce. With appse ai our job is much easy as everything is automated and we have better control on our inventory.
Kaywan Pour
Niagara Warenhandels GmbH
appse ai is making our operations easy! They make the customer experience much better. It costs us less human effort to proceed our orders.
Ramez Tacrity
Technical Sales Specialist, Digitech
I was impressed by how easy appse ai is to use and their ability to customize the platform to meet our clients specific requirements.
Vainick Oliveri
Golden Toys
appse ai transformed our business by automating the sync between SAP Business One and WooCommerce. What used to be a time-consuming, manual process is now seamless. We add products in SAP, and everything syncs automatically to the website.
Maher Ataya
Founder, Italparts SRL & Italparts LLC
appse ai truly helped us transform our business processes. Now with the integration, it has become really smooth, everything just flows better. It really helped our team save time, streamline processes and honestly boost productivity more than we expected.
Jason Mitchell
MD, All Marine Spares
Since we started using appse ai as our middleware, everything has been way smoother. It saved us about 10-20 hours a week, which is huge. The team is super responsive and easy to work with.
Dan Gerber
CEO, Designer Boys
appse ai truly understood our needs and delivered a seamless integration between SAP and Shopify. Their team is highly knowledgeable and capable, ensuring the solution perfectly aligned with our requirements.
Columb McCluskey
Sales Director, Trimwel
appse ai is fantastic, it works really well and is easy to use! Its visual interface makes it simple to see what is happening, and I especially liked the visual mapping of process flows. The teams professionalism also really impressed me.
Richard Grew
Renegade Brewery
appse ai truly helped us transform our business processes. Now with the integration, it has become really smooth, everything just flows better. It really helped our team save time, streamline processes and honestly boost productivity more than we expected.
Jason Mitchell
MD, All Marine Spares
Since we started using appse ai as our middleware, everything has been way smoother. It saved us about 10-20 hours a week, which is huge. The team is super responsive and easy to work with.
Dan Gerber
CEO, Designer Boys
appse ai truly understood our needs and delivered a seamless integration between SAP and Shopify. Their team is highly knowledgeable and capable, ensuring the solution perfectly aligned with our requirements.
Columb McCluskey
Sales Director, Trimwel
appse ai is fantastic, it works really well and is easy to use! Its visual interface makes it simple to see what is happening, and I especially liked the visual mapping of process flows. The teams professionalism also really impressed me.
Richard Grew
Renegade Brewery
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