Transcription
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Hello everyone, my friends! My name is Maxim, and you are once again on the channel about business. In today's video, as I promised, we will explore a new platform for automating your business processes called n8n.
Right now, you can see the official website of this service. I will say right away that the main difference between this service and m.com is that, in some ways, this service is more complex than maycom. However, its main advantage is that we can install it on our own hosting. I will demonstrate this using Bget hosting, as they already have a ready-made server that you can rent with n8n pre-installed, saving you time on installation and setup.
This service offers a vast number of integrations—over 400, as they claim. However, based on my experience, I can say that m.com has more integrations. Often, you will need to use HTTP requests to perform certain actions, which requires some coding skills. However, you can mitigate this by using a neural network, for example, Perplexity.
Now, let me show you the pricing plans. As with m.com, they have their own server, so you can register and use the service in their personal account. They offer Starter, Pro, and Enterprise plans. They mention that there are free plans, but there are certain limitations. For example, you can only have one project and five executions, meaning you can run five different automation scenarios in parallel. There is no limit on the number of users, and forum support is available.
The next plan is Pro, where you can use three projects. A shared project, as I understand it, is a project that you can share with other users or your team working on your project. By default, you cannot just share a project on your own server; there are also certain limitations. In the Pro plan, you can have 20 simultaneous scenarios, and so on. You can check the differences yourself; it’s not that important.
Today, I will focus on using this service directly on Bget hosting. Let me show you an interesting section. Here, we have ready-made scenarios. Oops, I went to the wrong section; I meant templates or scenarios. Here, you can choose any template for your niche, for example, for marketing. You can filter by popularity.
For instance, there is a ready-made YouTube template. This template uses artificial intelligence to find specific videos on YouTube and analyze the data. As I understand it, it sends us a message on Telegram at the end. Essentially, it converts the video into text, and you can use this template for free. You can simply click "template to clipboard JSON," and it will copy it. Now, I will go to "My workflows" on my n8n server, and here I can just press Ctrl V to paste it. The scheme will be inserted immediately.
Of course, you will need to configure some default settings, such as entering authorization data, but nevertheless, there are ready-made automation schemes that you can use in your business, and most of them are free.
Now, regarding integrations, let me show you what integrations are available here. I quickly scrolled through, and the HTTP request block is quite commonly used. You can also use webhooks, and there are integrations with Google Sheets, Telegram, MySQL databases, Discord, Notion, Gmail, and more. You can see there are many options available.
I think it’s clear that this service is quite serious, and in some ways, it is even more convenient and better than maycom. Now, let’s discuss how to install and set up this service easily to automate your business processes.
On Bget hosting, there is a ready-made open solution for automating n8n that you can create using their Cloud VPS hosting. They have various specifications, and you can start with the first plan, which includes one core, 1 GB of RAM, and 250 MB per second internet speed. This plan costs only 7 rubles per day.
Comparing it with maycom, I believe the cheapest plan there is... Let me check maycom's pricing. They have a free starter plan with 1,000 operations per month. I can tell you right away that 1,000 operations are very few; you won’t even have enough to test one scenario. You will be testing it multiple times, and errors will arise. For me, 1,000 operations last about 2-3 days of active use while testing my automation schemes.
The next plan starts at $10.60. You will also have to deal with how to pay for this plan, as you need a foreign card or a service to pay for m.com. This can be a hassle and is not very convenient, in my opinion. Plus, sooner or later, as you scale your automations, you will have more and more scenarios that you want to automate, and the more operations you have per month, the more expensive the service will be.
You can see that 20,000 operations per month will cost around $20, 40,000 operations will be $34, and 80,000 operations will be $64. For some, this may not be a lot of money, but in some cases, it is a bit more convenient in terms of management.
I personally prefer Bget hosting, and today I will show you how to work with it. I will leave a link to this ready-made solution in the description; you can test it. The minimum tariff is 7 rubles. You can create a VPS; I believe the next plan is two cores and 2 GB of RAM.
Currently, I have about three scenarios running continuously. The CPU load is minimal, around 10%, and memory consumption is about 1 GB. To avoid running out of memory, you can start with the first plan with 1 GB, but I recommend taking the second plan for 22 rubles. With it, you can run several automation schemes simultaneously without worrying about your server's performance.
You can always change the settings later; you can start with 1 GB and then increase it.
I want to draw your attention to something important. After using this cloud server, I recommend reading the "Getting Started" section. There is a detailed description of how to update the n8n version. By default, it does not install the latest version, and it is advisable to update it. To do this, you will need to connect to the server via SSH, and there are command orders you need to execute through the console.
This may seem complicated to some, but I think in future videos, if you are interested, I will make a separate video on how to update everything correctly so that it works properly and you can use the latest version.
Now, let’s move on to the n8n service itself. I have many different schemes here. Some are running, and some I am constantly testing. I uploaded a simple scheme for auto-posting in Telegram from an RSS feed. We examined a similar scheme when reviewing the maycom service; it is absolutely identical, with a few exceptions that I will explain later.
Let’s take a look at the system itself and how it works. The principle of operation is very simple. You create a new workflow, or scenario, and I will show you how to work with my existing scenario.
On the left side, we have the name of our scenario. You can rename it if you want. There is a switch that activates our scenario permanently if you have set it up initially. There are various options for triggering the scenario. You can add triggers, which is the first block that starts our scenario.
For example, you can set it to run on a schedule, choosing every second, minute, hour, day, week, or month. You can specify the number of days and the start time. If we set such a trigger at the beginning of our scenario, it will run at the specified time.
We won’t do that now; I just showed you as an example. All blocks are added using this plus button, or you can right-click on any empty space and click "Add Node."
Next, we can search for a ready-made integration with an application, for example, Telegram. We click on Telegram, and we need to choose which block we require. In my scheme, I use the "send message" block, which will send a message to Telegram at the end of our scenario.
You can select it for testing. In my scheme, I have a link to the RSS source, and every hour, it scans the feed for new news from this source. Let’s test our first RSS block by clicking the "Test Event" button.
We see a green checkmark, meaning our block has worked, and we have a news item here. There is a title, a link to the news, the date of the news, and even a link to an image. Here is the news content, and we see that the block has turned green, indicating that one item has moved to the next block, which is the article translation.
To add this translation block, we use the ChatGPT block. Let me show you the RSS block I added at the beginning. The next block is ChatGPT, and we need to select the message model. You can see the names of all the blocks here.
This block does the following: as soon as we open it, the left side shows the input data for this block, and the right side shows the output data. It’s very convenient, and you can switch between these blocks.
For example, on the right side, we have the article translation input. We click on it and move to our next block for translating the article. Next, we can go to the title generation.
Here, we use the integration with ChatGPT, so you need to have the integration set up with your OpenAI account. You need to click the pencil icon and enter your key and organization ID. After that, click the save button to connect the integration with your ChatGPT.
Next, we select the resource text and operation message model. Here, we choose the ChatGPT model we need. I use ChatGPT 4 Mini because it is the cheapest and has internet access, allowing it to browse links and find information.
This is very convenient. We use the user role, and let me show you the prompt I use. It says: "Your task is to take the news, study the content, and rewrite the news in simple language. Follow this format: structure the text into headings and paragraphs."
You can read the entire prompt; I won’t read it all. I want to point out that it’s better to write prompts in English. I write everything in Russian, and while it works fine, it’s ideal to do it in English. You can just pass the text through Google Translate, copy what it translates into English, and paste it here. This way, the chances of errors and misunderstandings will be lower.
In this block, we also need to ensure that the integration with ChatGPT is set up correctly. The prompt here generates a catchy title for the article based on its description.
Let’s test it. It generated the title: "Fate or Chance: How KVN Changed Viktor's Life." My prompt has been refined, and it’s a simple one.
Now, let’s return to the Telegram block. We need to send the generated title, text, and image from our RSS source. We also need to set up the integration with our bot. I showed how to set up the integration in the maycom video; it’s quite simple. You just need to get your bot's token and use the default URL for Telegram.
You paste your bot's token here and configure it. You also need to specify the chat ID of your Telegram channel with the "@" symbol, and your bot must be added as an administrator to that channel to publish on its behalf.
In the text field, we start with the title: "A Random Meeting That Changed Viktor Vasilyev's Life." Then, we add the link to the image from our RSS feed. We take the enclosure URL from the RSS trigger and drag it here.
Next, we insert the output of our article translation. I think it’s clear how to do this. Let’s test it and see how it works in Telegram.
The test was successful! Let’s check what we have. The title is "A Random Meeting That Changed Viktor Vasilyev's Life," along with the description of our article and the photo.
There is another mode for using Telegram. I use the "Send Message" block, but there is also a block where you can send a photo directly. However, I don’t use it because it allows for much less text.
In this block, we can insert up to 3,000 characters, while the photo block allows for a maximum of 1,000 characters. If we use the photo block, the image will appear first, followed by the text.
In this block, unfortunately, the order cannot be changed, so the photo appears as a preview. The important settings I wanted to mention are that I have added n8n attribution by default. If we click the test button, a copyright notice will be added at the bottom of the post.
You can disable this by clicking the field, finding n8n attribution, and turning it off so it doesn’t appear in your posts. Also, make sure to add the "Disable Web Page Preview" block. If you don’t add it, the post will look like this, without displaying the preview.
By adding and disabling it, the output will be much better.
This is how it works. We have covered the scheme. What else is interesting?
When you set your scheme to run continuously, all executions will be displayed here. This is essentially the log of your automation triggers. If something goes wrong, you can double-click to see what the error was.
For example, it might say "Please check parameters." You can figure out what went wrong and refine your scheme to ensure it works correctly.
That’s probably the main points I wanted to cover. At the bottom, there are two buttons: "Del" to delete the current executed scheme and "Test Workflow" to retest it.
You can also deactivate certain blocks, selectively run blocks by clicking the play button, delete blocks, and there are additional options like testing, renaming, and copying blocks.
You can clone each block, and it’s very convenient. I hope this video hasn’t been too long and that you found it useful.
If you liked it, please give it a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, and let me know which service you find more interesting to explore: n8n or m.com.
For me, I realized that I prefer to pay a certain amount to Bget hosting, but have this service directly on my hosting, giving me full control over it.
After all, business automation is a serious and confidential matter, in my opinion. Plus, many services can be blocked from abroad, which is frustrating.
It’s better and more reliable to have these automation schemes running directly on your hosting, as I do with my n8n.
Please share your automation tasks in the comments. I would love to read them, and perhaps I can help some of you with your projects.
Don’t forget that I have some ready-made automation schemes on my ProDe website, which I have already shown you. This includes auto-posting for maycom, a generator, and auto-posting in Telegram from RSS, as well as image generation from Ne City flags.
There are also auto-posting schemes for WordPress, Yandex Zen, and Telegram. I have already discussed these schemes on maycom.
That’s all for now, my friends. This was Maxim from the channel about business. See you soon! Goodbye!
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