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Process Runbook / SOP
Compliance Deadline Tracking
[YourCompany.com] · Legal Department · Prepared by FullSpec · [Today's Date]
This runbook is your plain-English operating guide for the Compliance Deadline Tracking automation. It explains what the system does at each stage, what your team is responsible for, how to handle exceptions when they arise, and how to keep the process running well over time. FullSpec has built, tested, and handed over the automation end to end. Your role is to manage the compliance register, act on escalations for high-risk items, and use this document as your reference when something unexpected happens.
01Process overview
The Compliance Deadline Tracking process automatically monitors every obligation in your central register, sends tiered reminder emails to responsible owners at 30, 14, and 3 days before each deadline, escalates non-responses via Slack, and compiles a weekly digest for leadership every Monday morning. What previously took the legal or operations manager roughly six hours a week of manual checking, emailing, and chasing is now handled continuously by three automated agents. The only step that requires human judgment is the review and approval of high-risk overdue items before the register is marked complete.
Process name
Compliance Deadline Tracking
Trigger
A new compliance obligation is submitted via the intake form, OR a daily scheduled check finds a deadline entering a reminder window (30, 14, or 3 days)
Final output
All deadlines tracked with tiered reminders sent, escalations posted to Slack for non-responses, evidence logged in Notion, and a weekly digest emailed to the legal manager every Monday
Agents running
Deadline Monitor Agent, Escalation Agent, Completion and Reporting Agent
Tools involved
Google Sheets, Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack, Notion
Weekly volume
Approximately 30 to 60 compliance items tracked per month (roughly 8 to 15 items active per week)
Human checkpoint
Legal manager reviews and approves the resolution of high-risk overdue items before the register is marked complete
Process owner
Legal or Operations Manager
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02Step-by-step: what happens and who acts
What you actually need to do: There is only one step in this process that requires action from your team. When the Escalation Agent flags a high-risk overdue item, the legal manager must review the item in Google Sheets and decide how to proceed before the register row is updated to Complete. Every other step runs automatically.
Step
What happens
Who acts
Type
1
A new compliance obligation is submitted through the intake form (Google Form or Notion form). The form captures the deadline date, responsible owner, obligation category, and a description of the required action.
Responsible owner or legal manager
Human
2
The Deadline Monitor Agent picks up the new submission, checks that all required fields are present, resolves the responsible owner's contact details, and calculates the exact dates on which 30-day, 14-day, and 3-day reminder emails should be sent.
Deadline Monitor Agent
Automated
3
The validated record is written to the central compliance register in Google Sheets with a status of Open, all calculated reminder dates populated, and the obligation category and owner recorded in the correct columns.
Deadline Monitor Agent
Automated
4
A Google Calendar event is created automatically for the deadline date and assigned to the responsible owner. The event description links directly back to the relevant row in the Google Sheets register so the owner can find the detail immediately.
Deadline Monitor Agent
Automated
5
At each calculated reminder date, a templated email is sent via Gmail to the responsible owner. Each email states the deadline, the action required, and includes a one-click acknowledgement link so the owner can confirm they have seen and are acting on the reminder.
Deadline Monitor Agent
Automated
6
If no acknowledgement is recorded against the register row within 48 hours of a reminder being sent, the Escalation Agent posts a direct Slack message to the responsible owner and a separate notification to the compliance manager channel. The register row status is updated to Escalated.
Escalation Agent
Automated
7
The legal manager receives the escalation notification and reviews the overdue item in Google Sheets. For high-risk items, the manager confirms the situation with the owner, decides on next steps, and approves the resolution before the register is updated. This is the only manual step in the automated flow.
Legal Manager
Human
8
When the responsible owner submits their completion confirmation via the acknowledgement link, the Completion and Reporting Agent updates the register row to Complete, timestamps the entry, and creates an evidence log in Notion that includes any attached documents or confirmation receipts.
Completion and Reporting Agent
Automated
9
Every Monday morning, the Completion and Reporting Agent compiles a status digest drawing from the live Google Sheets register and sends it automatically via Gmail to the legal manager. The digest lists all open, overdue, and recently completed items.
Completion and Reporting Agent
Automated
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03Handling exceptions
Situation
What the system does
What you do
A new intake submission is missing a required field (deadline date, owner name, or obligation category)
The Deadline Monitor Agent detects the incomplete record, does not write it to the register, and sends an automated email back to the submitter listing the missing fields and asking them to resubmit.
If the resubmission does not arrive within 24 hours, contact the submitter directly and help them complete the intake form. Check the register to confirm the record has been added once resubmitted.
A duplicate obligation is submitted (same deadline and owner already exists in the register)
The Deadline Monitor Agent compares the incoming entry against existing open rows. If a match is found on deadline date, owner, and category, the duplicate is flagged in a separate holding tab in Google Sheets and no new record or calendar event is created.
Review the holding tab at least weekly. If the duplicate is genuinely a separate obligation, move it to the main register manually and confirm the agent picks it up on the next scheduled check.
A reminder email bounces or cannot be delivered to the responsible owner
Gmail returns a delivery failure. The Escalation Agent detects the undelivered status against the register row within 2 hours and posts a Slack alert to the compliance manager channel noting the failed delivery and the deadline at risk.
Update the responsible owner's contact details in the register immediately. Reach out to the owner via an alternative channel (phone or direct Slack message) to ensure they are aware of the deadline. Correct the email address in Google Sheets so future reminders send successfully.
The responsible owner does not acknowledge a reminder and does not respond to the Slack escalation within a further 48 hours
The Escalation Agent sends a second-level Slack alert to the legal manager and marks the register row as High Risk Overdue. No further automated actions are taken until the legal manager records a decision in the register.
Contact the owner directly. Determine whether the obligation has been actioned without being logged, or whether there is a genuine risk of a missed deadline. Record your decision in the Notes column of the Google Sheets row and update the status manually if appropriate.
An external party (government portal, regulator, or counterparty) does not respond or confirm receipt of a submission
The automation has no visibility of external portals. The system continues to show the item as Open in the register and will continue sending reminders to the internal owner until an acknowledgement is received.
When waiting on external confirmation, update the register row status to Pending External Confirmation manually. This suppresses further automated reminders. Once confirmation arrives, remove that status and submit the completion confirmation via the acknowledgement link so the evidence is logged in Notion.
Google Sheets, Gmail, or Slack becomes temporarily unavailable
The automation platform queues any pending actions and retries at 15-minute intervals for up to 4 hours. If the tool remains unavailable after 4 hours, an error notification is sent to the process owner's backup email address and the affected tasks are logged in the platform error queue.
Check the error queue in the automation platform dashboard. If the outage is expected to be brief, no action is needed as queued tasks will process automatically once the tool recovers. If the outage extends beyond a working day, contact FullSpec support at support@gofullspec.com and manually review the register for any deadlines falling within the next 3 days that may need a manual reminder.
04Who to contact and when
Fill in the rows marked with placeholders once your team is confirmed. Keep this table updated whenever team members change so that escalations and support requests always reach the right person.
Role
Name
How to reach them
Process owner (Legal or Operations Manager)
[Your name]
[Your email and Slack handle]
Compliance Officer
[Compliance Officer name]
[Compliance Officer email and Slack handle]
Backup reviewer (for cover when process owner is absent)
[Backup name]
[Backup email and Slack handle]
IT or systems access contact (for tool access issues)
[IT contact name]
[IT contact email or helpdesk link]
FullSpec builder (build and configuration questions)
FullSpec
support@gofullspec.com
FullSpec support (errors, outages, automation not running)
FullSpec Support
support@gofullspec.com
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05Ongoing maintenance
Whenever a new obligation type or category is added
Add the new category to the intake form dropdown and the Google Sheets category column. Confirm with FullSpec whether the new type needs a different reminder window or escalation threshold. Do not add free-text categories directly to the register without updating the form first, as the agents validate against a fixed category list.
Process owner, with FullSpec support if the reminder logic needs adjusting
Whenever the reminder email templates need updating (e.g. tone, branding, or regulatory wording changes)
Send the revised wording to FullSpec at support@gofullspec.com. Do not edit the templates directly in the automation platform unless you have been trained to do so, as formatting errors in the acknowledgement link will break the escalation trigger.
Process owner requests change; FullSpec implements
Monthly spot-check (first Monday of each month)
Open the Google Sheets register and review all rows with a status other than Complete or Pending External Confirmation. Confirm that reminder dates look correct for upcoming items. Check the Notion evidence log for the previous month to ensure all completed items have a corresponding entry.
Process owner
Weekly error-log review (every Friday)
Check the automation platform error queue for any failed tasks from the past seven days. Review any items flagged as undelivered, duplicate-held, or retry-failed. Resolve or escalate each one before the end of the working week so nothing rolls over unactioned.
Process owner
Whenever a team member joins, leaves, or changes role
Update the responsible owner contact details in the Google Sheets register for any open items assigned to the departing or changing team member. Update the Slack channel membership for the compliance alerts channel. Notify FullSpec if the escalation routing (which Slack user or channel receives high-risk alerts) needs to change.
Process owner
Quarterly volume review (every 3 months)
Compare the current monthly item volume against the baseline of 30 to 60 items per month. If volume has grown significantly, review whether the current reminder windows and escalation thresholds still reflect business risk. Check whether the Notion storage and Google Sheets row count are approaching any plan limits. Flag any capacity concerns to FullSpec.
Process owner, with FullSpec support for threshold or capacity changes
The most common maintenance issue for this process is owner contact details becoming stale in the register. When a team member changes role or leaves, any open compliance items still assigned to them will continue sending reminders to the old email address or Slack handle. These will either bounce silently or go unread, triggering false escalations. Make updating owner details on the same day as any personnel change a standing rule for the process owner.
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