HR & IT Helpdesk Chatbot with Audio Transcription - n8n Workflow

Modern workplaces demand instant answers, yet most HR support systems remain trapped in the era of business hours and email tickets. Employees working across different time zones face delays when they need critical policy information. Mobile professionals juggling back-to-back meetings struggle with traditional text-based interfaces that don't match their workflow reality.

The solution lies in intelligent automation that meets employees where they are. This comprehensive n8n workflow transforms standard HR support by deploying an AI-powered assistant that processes natural language queries, maintains conversational context, and delivers precise answers from your organization's knowledge base. Through seamless Telegram integration, employees can interact using either text or voice messages, creating a support experience that adapts to their communication preferences and schedule demands.

Prerequisites: What You'll Need to Get Started

Before diving into the build, make sure you have these API accounts ready:

• OpenAI API - Powers the conversational AI and document embeddings
• Google Gemini API - Handles voice message transcription
• Telegram Bot API - Creates the chat interface for employees
• PostgreSQL Database - Stores chat history and document vectors
• n8n Instance - The automation platform that connects everything

Key Components: The n8n Nodes That Make Magic Happen

This workflow leverages several powerful n8n nodes working together:

• HTTP Request - Downloads company policy documents
• Extract from File - Pulls text content from PDFs
• Vector Store PGVector - Creates searchable document embeddings
• Telegram Trigger - Listens for employee messages
• Google Gemini - Transcribes voice messages to text
• AI Agent - The brain that understands and responds
• Switch Node - Routes different message types appropriately

Step 1: Transform Company Documents into Smart Knowledge

The workflow starts by grabbing your employee handbook from wherever it lives online. In this case, it downloads a PDF from a companies website, but you can point it to any document URL.

Here's where the magic begins: the system doesn't just store the PDF somewhere. It extracts all the text, breaks it into digestible 2000-character chunks, and creates vector embeddings using OpenAI's technology. Think of this as teaching the AI to understand the meaning behind every policy, not just the words.

These embeddings get stored in a PostgreSQL database with PGVector extension, creating a searchable knowledge base that can instantly find relevant information based on what employees ask.

Step 2: Set Up Multi-Modal Message Processing

The Telegram integration is brilliantly simple yet sophisticated. When an employee sends a message to your HR bot, the workflow immediately determines what type of input it received.

Text messages flow directly to processing. Voice messages take a different path: the system downloads the audio file from Telegram, sends it to Google Gemini 2.5 Flash for transcription, and converts speech to text. Any unsupported message types get a polite "I can't process this" response.

This branching logic ensures every employee interaction gets handled appropriately, whether they're typing during lunch or speaking while walking to a meeting.

Step 3: Build the Conversational AI Brain

The heart of this system is the AI Agent powered by OpenAI's language models. But this isn't just any chatbot. It has three key superpowers:

Memory: The system remembers entire conversations using PostgreSQL chat memory, keyed to each employee's unique chat ID. Ask a follow-up question about yesterday's discussion, and it knows exactly what you're talking about.

Knowledge: Through the vector store tool, the AI can search through all your company policies and documents to find accurate, specific answers rather than making things up.

Context: The system prompt tells the AI it's specifically designed for HR and employee policy questions, keeping responses focused and professional.

Step 4: Create Seamless Response Delivery

Once the AI processes the question and generates a response, the workflow sends the answer back through Telegram to the employee who asked. The response includes relevant policy information, maintains conversational context, and feels natural rather than robotic.

The beauty is in the simplicity from the employee's perspective. They send a message or voice note to a Telegram bot and get an intelligent, personalized response in seconds.

Step 5: Handle Errors Gracefully

Smart workflows anticipate problems. This system includes fallback handling for unsupported message types and maintains conversation state even if individual components have issues. Employees always get some kind of response, even if it's explaining that their particular request can't be processed.

Step 6: Scale and Customize for Your Organization

The workflow is designed to be flexible. You can easily swap out the document source, adjust the chunk size for different types of policies, modify the AI's personality through system prompts, or add additional tools for the agent to use.

Want to include IT support documents alongside HR policies? Just add more document sources. Need the bot to escalate complex questions to human agents? Add conditional logic and notification workflows.

Real-World Benefits That Transform Employee Experience

This HR helpdesk chatbot solves genuine workplace problems. Employees get instant answers instead of waiting hours or days for email responses. Voice message support means people can ask questions while commuting, exercising, or anytime typing isn't convenient.

The conversational memory creates continuity that traditional FAQ systems lack. An employee can start a conversation about parental leave, come back a week later with follow-up questions, and the system remembers the entire context.

For HR teams, this dramatically reduces routine inquiry volume while ensuring consistent, accurate information delivery. The system never forgets policy details, never gives outdated information, and works 24/7 across all time zones.

Use Cases That Make This Workflow Essential

Beyond basic policy questions, this workflow excels in several scenarios:

• New Employee Onboarding: Instant answers to common questions without overwhelming HR staff
• Remote Team Support: Always-available assistance for distributed workforces
• Multilingual Workplaces: Easy to extend with translation capabilities
• Compliance Questions: Consistent policy interpretation and documentation
• Emergency Information: After-hours access to critical procedures

The combination of voice processing, intelligent search, and conversational memory creates an employee support system that feels more like talking to a knowledgeable colleague than interacting with corporate software.

This n8n workflow proves that building sophisticated AI solutions doesn't require massive development teams or expensive enterprise software. With the right combination of tools and thoughtful design, you can create employee experiences that genuinely make work better.