Case study

Business Automation Suite

AutomationLogistics

Project Overview

A national logistics and freight company was drowning in manual processes. Their operations team spent over 30 hours per week copying data between systems, chasing approvals via email, generating reports in Excel, and manually notifying clients about shipment status. DataVonix designed and built a comprehensive Business Automation Suite - a connected ecosystem of workflows using n8n, custom APIs, and integrations that eliminated the bottlenecks and freed the team to focus on growth.

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Challenge

The Problem

Before automation, a single freight booking involved: a customer submitting a request form, a coordinator manually entering it into the TMS (transport management system), an email sent to the warehouse team, a separate Slack notification to the driver dispatcher, a manual invoice created in Xero, and a follow-up email to the client with tracking details. Each booking took 22–35 minutes of human time across four different people. With 60–80 bookings per day, this was unsustainable.

Beyond bookings, weekly revenue reports required a finance analyst to spend 4–6 hours pulling data from three different systems and formatting it in Excel. Client satisfaction surveys were never sent. Overdue invoice chasing was inconsistent. Staff onboarding took two weeks of manual account provisioning.

Our Approach

DataVonix began with a two-week workflow audit - mapping every repetitive process, quantifying time spent, and identifying integration points between the tools already in use. We then designed a phased automation roadmap, prioritising the highest-impact workflows first.

We selected n8n (self-hosted) as the automation backbone for its flexibility, custom code support, and data privacy guarantees. For API integrations not natively supported, we built lightweight connector services in ASP.NET Core.

Delivered

Key Automations Delivered

End-to-end booking automation
Customer form submission triggers automatic TMS entry, warehouse notification, driver dispatch alert, Xero invoice creation, and client confirmation email - all in under 90 seconds with zero human involvement.
Automated revenue reporting
Every Monday at 7 AM, the system pulls data from the TMS, payment gateway, and CRM, generates a formatted PDF report, and emails it to leadership. What took 5 hours now happens while everyone sleeps.
Overdue invoice recovery
When an invoice passes 7 days overdue, a polite email sequence begins automatically. At 14 days, the account manager receives a Slack alert. At 30 days, the account is flagged in the CRM. Recovery rates improved by 38%.
Client shipment tracking notifications
GPS data from the fleet management system triggers automated SMS and email updates to clients at key milestones: picked up, in transit, out for delivery, delivered.
Staff onboarding workflow
When HR marks a new hire in the HRIS, accounts are provisioned across email, Slack, TMS, and internal tools automatically. A personalised welcome email with login credentials is sent on their start date.
Post-delivery satisfaction surveys
48 hours after delivery confirmation, a short NPS survey is sent to the client. Responses are logged to a dashboard and negative scores trigger a same-day follow-up task for the account manager.

Implementation

Technical Implementation

The automation hub runs on a self-hosted n8n instance on a dedicated Ubuntu VPS, with daily automated backups to S3. All credentials and API keys are stored in n8n's encrypted credential store. Workflows are version-controlled in Git for auditability and rollback capability.

Custom webhook endpoints were built in ASP.NET Core to handle the TMS integration (which had no native n8n connector) and to process GPS fleet data in real time. A SQL Server database stores automation run logs and error events for monitoring.

Outcome

Results

30+ hours per week
30+ hours per week of manual work eliminated in the first month
22–35 minutes to under 2 minutes
Booking processing time reduced from 22–35 minutes to under 2 minutes
38%
Invoice overdue recovery rate improved by 38%
34 to 61
Client satisfaction score (NPS) increased from 34 to 61 within three months
2 weeks to same-day
Staff onboarding time reduced from 2 weeks to same-day
20+ hours per month
Finance team saved 20+ hours per month on reporting alone