Build an OpenAI HR assistant for Telegram attendance and salary reports

What Problem Does It Solve?

• HR managers waste hours manually logging attendance, calculating work hours, and tracking salary advances in spreadsheets.
• Onboarding new staff often involves messy paperwork or scattered chat messages.
• Salary calculations are prone to errors when manually tallying absence, overtime, and penalties.
• This workflow solves these by:
  -- Allowing employees to check in/out and request loans via a simple Telegram chat.
  -- Automatically calculating work hours and applying penalties for early departure.
  -- Registering new employees through an interactive AI chat.
  -- Generating instant financial reports including net salary, deductions, and overtime.

How to Configure It

• Google Sheets Setup
  -- Create a Google Sheet with two tabs: one for "Employee Data" (Columns: ID, Name, Role, Branch, Salary) and one for "Logs" (Attendance history).
  -- Connect your Google Sheets OAuth2 credentials in n8n and select this sheet in all related nodes.
• Telegram Setup
  -- Create a new bot via BotFather and connect your Telegram credentials.
  -- (Optional) Set the "Admin Chat ID" in the Daily Report node to receive absentee lists.
• AI Setup
  -- Add your OpenAI API key (used for intent classification and conversational agents).
  -- The included prompts are currently in Egyptian Arabic — you can translate them to English or your local language in the "System Message" of the Agent nodes.
• Timezone
  -- Adjust the timezone in the "Context" section of the AI Agent nodes to match your company's location (currently set to Africa/Cairo).

How It Works

• Telegram Trigger catches every message sent to the HR Bot.
• AI Classifier analyzes the text to determine intent:
  -- New Employee: Triggers a conversation to collect Name, ID, Salary, and Branch -> Validates data -> Adds to "Employee Data" sheet.
  -- Attendance (Check-in): Logs the timestamp immediately.
  -- Departure (Check-out): Looks up arrival time, calculates total hours worked. If under 8 hours, it flags "Early Departure" and logs it with a penalty note.
  -- Financial Request: Logs salary advances (loans) directly to the sheet.
  -- Report Request: An AI Analyst calculates net salary (Basic + Overtime - Absence - Advances) and replies with a detailed breakdown.
• Daily Schedule:
  -- Every day at 1:00 PM, the workflow compares today's attendance logs against the full employee list.
  -- It generates a list of absentees and sends a summary report to the HR Manager.

Customization Ideas

• Change the Logic: Edit the JavaScript node to change the "8-hour work day" rule to match your company policy.
• Multi-Platform: Swap the Telegram Trigger for WhatsApp or Slack to match your team's communication tool.
• PDF Payslips: Add a node to generate a PDF payslip based on the AI's financial report and email it to the employee.
• Face Recognition: Integrate an image analysis node if you want employees to send a selfie for attendance verification.
• For more info Contact Me