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RSS to Email Digest

2 junior
RSS Email Schedule Data Filtering

Create a workflow that aggregates multiple RSS feeds and sends a weekly digest email with the latest articles. Master scheduled automation, data aggregation, and email formatting.

Your Challenge

Core Functionality

Your workflow must:

  • Set up a Schedule Trigger node to run every Monday at 8:00 AM
  • Fetch articles from at least 3 different RSS feeds
  • Filter articles to only include those published in the past 7 days
  • Remove duplicate articles (same title or URL across different feeds)
  • Format articles into a clean, readable HTML email with sections per feed
  • Send the digest email to specified recipients
  • Include article title, excerpt/description, publication date, and link

Error Handling

Your workflow should:

  • Handle RSS feeds that are temporarily unavailable (skip and continue)
  • Manage malformed RSS feed data gracefully
  • Catch email sending failures and log them
  • Handle empty results appropriately (no articles in the past week)
  • Retry failed RSS fetches with exponential backoff

Edge Cases

Your workflow should handle:

  • Deal with RSS feeds that don't provide publication dates
  • Handle articles with missing descriptions or excerpts
  • Process feeds with different date formats correctly
  • Manage very long article titles (truncate appropriately)
  • Handle special characters and HTML entities in article content

Bonus Challenges (Optional)

Take it further by:

  • Add article categorization or tagging
  • Include article thumbnails/featured images in the digest
  • Generate a "Top 5 Articles" section based on engagement metrics
  • Support user preferences (subscribe/unsubscribe, feed selection)
  • Add a web preview link to view digest before sending
  • Track open rates and click-through rates

Tips & Hints

  • Use the Schedule Trigger node to run every Monday morning
  • The RSS Read node can fetch articles from any RSS/Atom feed
  • Use the Code node to filter articles by date and remove duplicates
  • The HTML node helps format your email content nicely
  • Test with your own email address first
  • Consider using the Merge node to combine articles from multiple feeds