Meeting transcripts are valuable. They capture decisions, action items, and context that would otherwise be lost. Tools like Fireflies make it easy to generate these transcripts automatically.
But here’s where the process breaks down: after every meeting, you need to manually download the transcript, format it into something useful, decide where to store it, and file it away. This might only take 5 minutes per meeting, but across dozens of meetings per month, it adds up to hours of repetitive work.
The solution? Automate the entire process.
Building an Intelligent Filing System
In this tutorial, we show you how to build a workflow that automatically processes Fireflies transcripts and organizes them in Google Drive without any manual intervention.
Here’s what the workflow does:
1. Triggers on new transcripts When Fireflies emails you a meeting transcript, the workflow automatically detects it and begins processing.
2. Extracts the full conversation Using the Fireflies integration, the workflow retrieves the complete transcript, not just summaries. This gives you access to every detail discussed in the meeting.
3. Formats the content The workflow structures the transcript into a clean format with discussion points, decisions made, action items, and next steps. You can customize this formatting to match your preferences.
4. Files it in the right folder Based on the meeting context (participants, topics discussed, or other criteria you define), the workflow determines which Google Drive folder the notes belong in and saves them there automatically.
Why This Approach Works
Traditional automation tools require you to manually map every possible scenario. If meeting X happens, put it in folder Y. This breaks down quickly as your folder structure evolves or meeting contexts change.
This workflow takes a different approach. Instead of maintaining complex routing rules, you describe how you want things organized in natural language, and the system figures out the rest. As your needs change, you can adjust the instructions without rebuilding the entire workflow.
What You Need
The workflow uses three main integrations:
Gmail to detect incoming Fireflies transcript emails Fireflies to fetch the full transcript content Google Drive to create and organize documents
Each step connects through Needle’s workflow builder, where you can see exactly what happens at each stage and modify it as needed.
Getting Started
This workflow is available as a template in Needle. To use it:
Connect your Gmail, Fireflies, and Google Drive accounts
Customize the formatting template to match your note-taking style
Define your folder structure (or describe how you organize meetings)
Activate the workflow
From that point forward, every Fireflies transcript gets automatically processed and filed. No manual work required.
Beyond Meeting Notes
This same pattern (trigger, extract, format, route) applies to many other documentation workflows. Customer call notes, interview transcripts, project debriefs, research conversations. Anywhere you’re manually processing structured information, you can build an automation to handle it.
The key is breaking down your current manual process into clear steps, then connecting the right tools to handle each step automatically.
What documentation workflows are you still handling manually? Reply to this email and let us know. We’re always looking for new automation challenges to tackle.
