Qualify Calendly leads in Airtable with OpenAI GPT-based categorization

Description

Quick overview
This automation captures Calendly bookings, filters out the leads that don't qualify, and uses OpenAI to categorize why each prospect booked a call. It's built for agencies, consultancies, and anyone running sales calls through Calendly who wants lead intent organized and tracked in Airtable.

How it works
Input: a Calendly webhook fires when someone books or cancels.
Qualification check: validates the lead against your criteria
Event routing: decides whether it's a new booking or a cancellation
New booking: creates an Airtable record with contact details, meeting time, and booking reason, fetches your categories from Airtable, has OpenAI pick the right one, and updates the record
Cancellation: finds the existing Airtable record and deletes it
Output: organized, categorized lead data in Airtable, ready for follow-up.

Setup
Build the Airtable base. Create two tables. Calendly Information with fields: Name, First Name, Last Name, Email, Phone, Event Name, Brand, Meeting Date, Why they booked, Categories (linked to the Categories table). Categories with: Name (text) and id (record ID).
Add Airtable credentials in n8n. In Airtable, create a personal access token with data.records:read and data.records:write. Add it as an Airtable credential in n8n and test the connection.
Configure the Calendly webhook. In Calendly, go to Integrations, then API & Webhooks, and create a webhook. Copy the URL from the "Calendly Webhook" node in n8n. Subscribe to invitee.created and invitee.canceled.
Add OpenAI credentials. Follow this guide to create your key (https://winflowai.com/blog/get-openai-api-key/), then add it as an OpenAI credential in n8n. Make sure your OpenAI account has credits.
Configure the nodes. Set your Airtable credential, Base ID, and Table IDs on each Airtable node. Adjust the "Qualified?" IF node to match your Calendly question structure. Update the "Category Assigner" OpenAI prompt for your business and categories. Map the "Create a Calendly Meeting" fields to your form questions.
Test. Activate the workflow, book a test meeting, and confirm the record and category appear in Airtable. Cancel it to confirm the record is removed.

Requirements
Calendly account on a plan that supports webhooks
Airtable account (free tier works)
OpenAI API account with credits
n8n instance (Cloud or self-hosted)

Additional info
Step-by-step guide:
OpenAI API key → https://winflowai.com/blog/get-openai-api-key/