Closed-Won to Kickoff in One Workflow: A Client Onboarding Handoff Automation in n8n

Description and use

Automating the transition from deal closure to project kickoff: a single n8n workflow that uses the deal ID for idempotency, generates a handoff brief with an LLM, creates client records, shared folders, task checklists, and drafts for welcome email and kickoff invite.

Problem

Sales closes deals but delivery never receives a consistent handoff, leading to duplicated welcome emails, missing shared folders, and incomplete client records across systems.

Outcome

The workflow ensures idempotent onboarding steps, prevents duplicate welcome emails, creates all necessary artifacts, and provides a dashboard via the onboarding_runs table to monitor progress and stuck runs.

Workflow

• Trigger webhook on CRM stage change to "won"
• Insert deal_id into onboarding_runs table, ignoring conflicts
• Generate handoff brief with LLM and store in brief column
• Create client record if not already done
• Create shared folder from template if not already done
• Create task checklist if not already done
• Draft welcome email and kickoff invite for review
• Send internal ping with brief
• Schedule daily check for runs stuck >2 hours

Evidence

trigger on the CRM stage change to won, key everything on the deal id so a retried webhook can't create a second client

Source

Track each step in a onboarding_runs table so a failure halfway resumes instead of starting over

Source

Ask the model for strict JSON with these fields: goals, in_scope, out_of_scope, promises_made, deadlines, stakeholders, risks, open_questions

Source