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  • Airtable System
  • Fiber Internet
  • n8n Integrations

Building Flow: tracking fiber builds from portfolio to work order

Flume Internet wires apartment buildings for fiber. We turned their CEO's prototype into the Airtable system sales and engineering run on, signed off in four days, then connected Zendesk, Gmail and Google Calendar so escalations, emails and meetings land on the right record without anyone typing them in.

Building Flow in Airtable: a portfolio's buildings in Survey, Construction, Activation and Live columns, each with its percent complete, beside one building's work orders and a card of activity logged automatically

Screens recreated with sample data. Every portfolio, building, person and ticket shown is fictional.

Client
Flume
Industry
Fiber internet for apartment buildings
Timeline
Signed off in 4 days, with Flume from May 2025 to April 2026
Services
Airtable Base DesignInterfacesn8n AutomationZendeskGmail & Calendar Sync

In Short

The problem
Buildings on Trello, escalations in Slack, sales activity typed by hand.
What we built
Building Flow in Airtable, with Zendesk, Gmail and Calendar wired in.
What changed
Signed off in four days. Emails, meetings and escalations now arrive on their own.

4days

From hire to the CEO's sign-off on the core system

3levels

Portfolio, building and work order, nested

4

Tools wired in: Zendesk, Gmail, Google Calendar and Slack

2

Times Flume came back for more

The Starting Point

Flume sells fiber and managed Wi-Fi to apartment and condo buildings, and sales and engineering both need to know where each building stands. The CEO had a prototype about 70% built, and asked us to rebuild it properly in Airtable.

Where the work lived[03]

  • A Trello boardWhere the buildings were tracked
  • Slack messagesHow support escalated tickets to engineering
  • Typed-in activityEmails and meetings logged by hand, or not at all

{The Build Board}

One sample portfolio, one week. Through n8n, Gmail, Google Calendar and Zendesk write themselves onto the right record.

  1. /01Gmail

    Dana's reply logs itself on her contact.

  2. /02Google Calendar

    Leo's second meeting logs as Meeting 2.

  3. /03Zendesk

    A tagged ticket lands under Construction.

  4. /04Work order

    One finished work order lifts Harbor View to 73%.

Four things happened. Nobody copied any of them into the base.

Board drawn with sample data. Stage names are illustrative.

Where each one lands
Zendesk tab
airtable.com · Building Flow
The Zendesk tab in Airtable: Network escalation and Construction escalation columns, each ticket a card with its title, time and key details
How it works
n8n · Gmail sync
An n8n workflow in three rows: build a sign-in link, handle the OAuth completion webhook, and find new email, match it to a contact by formula and log it in Airtable

Workflow recreated with sample names.

  1. /01

    One workflow builds a Google sign-in link for each person.

  2. /02

    A webhook stores the connection and marks the account Connected.

  3. /03

    New mail is matched to its record by a filter-by-formula lookup.

How It's Built

A property owner's group is a portfolio. Contacts and their activity hang off it, so sales and engineering see the same owner.

Portfolio, then building
airtable.com · Building Flow
A portfolio page in Airtable: Northwind Residential's nine buildings in Survey, Construction, Activation and Live columns, each card with its percent complete and work orders done
airtable.com · Building Flow
A building page in Airtable: Harbor View Lofts at 64% complete, with its work orders in Open, In progress and Done columns, each tagged by type and technician

Each building's percent comes from its finished work orders.

One Dashboard

Leadership wanted history over time, not just today's board. The dashboard reads straight off the base, so it is as current as the work.

KPI dashboard
airtable.com · Building Flow
The KPI dashboard: work orders completed week over week by type, work by technician, the top buildings by work orders, and each rep's meetings, emails and new deals

Engineering on top, sales activity by rep below.

The Engagement

  1. May 2025/01

    First contract

    Building Flow

    Hired on a Monday, signed off that Thursday.

  2. June to September 2025/02

    Second contract

    Sales views and integrations

    Calendar in July, Zendesk in August, Gmail per rep.

  3. February to April 2026/03

    Back again

    The new CRM

    n8n moved to our hosting, Gmail sync rebuilt, a Slack tracker.

What Changed

  • EscalationsSupport messaging people on SlackTagged in Zendesk, carded in Airtable by type
  • Sales activityTyped in by hand, or not loggedLogged from each rep's Gmail and Calendar
  • ReportingNo history to look back onWeek over week, by technician and by rep

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