Overview
Date-Triggered Workflows help you automate procurement, compliance, and contract-related tasks based on important dates. You don’t need to track deadlines manually or rely on someone to start the process. Whether you're handling renewals, reviewing security documentation, or planning budgets, this feature helps you stay ahead and makes sure the right people are notified at the right time.
Managing tasks tied to contract or document dates can be time-consuming and error-prone. Many teams rely on spreadsheets or reminders, which increases the chance of missed deadlines, budget surprises, or compliance issues.
💡 Quick tip: These workflows are perfect for time-sensitive processes like contract renewals, vendor reviews, or off-boarding, where you’d normally depend on someone remembering to take action.
Step-By-Step Demo
Tip: You can navigate back and forth between steps by positioning your mouse at the bottom of the demo screen. A progress bar will appear, allowing you to jump to different steps as needed.
How This Helps Your Team
For Procurement: Instead of logging into contracts weekly to check what’s coming up, use workflows that create tasks automatically before key dates. For example, 45 days before a renewal, assign the Contract Owner to evaluate pricing and usage.
For Legal & Security: Set compliance checks to trigger automatically when security docs (like DPAs or SOC 2s) are nearing expiration—no reminders or spreadsheets required.
For Finance: Trigger budget review tasks before contract end dates so your team isn’t surprised by renewal costs or vendor increases.
For IT: Automate off-boarding processes by setting a workflow to launch five days before a vendor contract terminates, ensuring timely access removal.
What’s the Difference Between Form-Triggered and Date-Triggered Workflows?
Form-Triggered Workflows start when you fill out and submit a request, like for a new purchase, renewal, or cancellation. Tropic uses your responses to decide which tasks to run. Note: These requests show up in the Requests dashboard with your name.
Date-Triggered Workflows start automatically when a contract, supplier, or document hits a date you’ve chosen. You don’t need to fill out a form. Note: These appear in the General Requests dashboard with “System” as the requestor.
Use a form-triggered workflow when you’re starting the process yourself. Use a date-triggered workflow when you want Tropic to start the process automatically based on timing.
What Happens When the Trigger Date Arrives
After you activate a date-triggered workflow, it waits in the background.
At 9am EST on business days, Tropic checks for any contracts, documents, or suppliers that match the trigger conditions you set.
For each match, Tropic:
- Creates a General Request
- Assigns the tasks you added to the workflow
- Shows the request in the General Requests dashboard with “System” as the requestor
- Adds a note in the Activity Feed of the related record
💡 Tasks work just like any other workflow. You choose who to assign—whether a specific person, the Contract Owner, or Document Owner. Tropic uses metadata to assign it automatically. Assigned tasks also show up in the Action Center.
Example: If you set a workflow to trigger on the Contract End Date and three contracts match tomorrow, you’ll see three General Requests created the next morning—each with its own tasks.
How to Create a Date-Triggered Workflow
- Navigate to Settings > General Workflows > Add Category
- Select Date as the Trigger Type
- Click Add Category.
💡 You cannot change the trigger type later.
- In the Workflow studio select the Trigger Details
- Choose timing: Before, After, or On the date (e.g. 30 days before)
- Choose the Source and Date: (e.g. Contract, Supplier, or Document and End Date, Renewal Reminder Date, Expiration Date)
- Click Add Date Trigger > Save Trigger Details
Now let’s add a task to build the workflow
- Click Add a Task
- Provide all necessary information and Save your Task
- Activate to begin monitoring for date matches
- Tasks will trigger at 9am EST on the configured date (or the nearest business day)
Intake Forms in Date-Triggered Workflows
You can use a Submit Intake Form task inside a Date-Triggered Workflow to collect important information before the next step in the process. This is helpful when a workflow starts automatically, but you still need someone to provide context.
You can set up a workflow to trigger on a contract’s Renewal Reminder Date, and include a Submit Intake Form as one of the tasks.
- In General Workflows, select the Date-Triggered Workflow you created (like the one above).
- In Workflow Studio, add a task and select Submit Intake Form from the Task Type dropdown in the task details panel. In the Request Form dropdown, choose an existing intake form such as Purchase Request.
- You can also create a new one from Settings > General Workflows (see Managing Non-Purchase Workflows with General Requests in Tropic).
- Fill out the details. For this type of workflow, you can assign the task to a teammate, a department manager, or the Contract Owner. If your workflow is triggered by a document, you'll also see Document Owner as an option.
- Once assigned, save the task and activate the category.
- When Tropic finds a match for the trigger conditions, it creates a Request for each contract found (same is true for document, or supplier workflows)
- Click the request link in the Activity feed of that contract to open the request.
- In the request, navigate to the Workflow tab to view the tasks.
- Click Review to open the task.
- Submit the form or mark the task complete.
- Some fields, like supplier name or renewal date, will be pre-filled using the contract or document metadata.
- Once the form is submitted, the task is marked complete and the request status updates automatically.
Limitations
Date-triggered workflows have a few important restrictions to keep in mind:
You cannot:
-
- Change the workflow from date-triggered to form-triggered (or vice versa)
- Use date-triggered workflows for recurring reviews (e.g., monthly or quarterly)
- Stack multiple date trigger, each workflow can only monitor one date field. If you need to trigger based on different dates (e.g., End Date and Renewal Reminder Date), create separate workflows.
- Use conditional logic (like form answers or spend-based task rules). These are not available in date-triggered workflows.
💡 Workflows only trigger on business days. If a trigger date falls on a weekend or holiday, tasks will be generated on the next business day.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I trigger a workflow based on a custom calendar date (e.g., July 1)?
A: No. Date-triggered workflows must use a date field already tied to a contract, document, or supplier (like End Date, Expiration Date, or Sentiment Review Date). You cannot enter an arbitrary calendar date. Only users with the Owner role can create or edit date-triggered workflows.
Q: Can I set up date triggers for purchase workflows?
A: No - date triggers are only available for general workflows.
Q: Do Date-Triggered Workflows work on weekends or holidays?
A: No. If a trigger date falls on a weekend or holiday, Tropic will generate the tasks on the next business day at 9am EST.
Q: Can I use this to set up recurring tasks every month or quarter?
A: Not exactly. Date-triggered workflows don’t run on a set schedule like “every month” or “every quarter.” But they can run again for the same contract, document, or supplier if the trigger date is updated and meets the workflow conditions in the future.
For example, if a workflow is based on a supplier’s “Last Security Review Date” and that date is updated to a year later, the workflow will trigger again when the new date is reached.
Q: Can I include a form in a Date-Triggered Workflow?
A: Yes! You can add a Submit Intake Form task inside the workflow. Once submitted, it auto-completes like any other form task.
Q: What happens after the trigger? Where do I see my tasks?
A:Tasks live inside a General Request and appear in your Action Center, just like tasks from form-triggered workflows.
Q: Can I change an existing workflow to a date-triggered workflow?
A: No, an existing workflow cannot be directly converted to a date-triggered workflow. Users will need to create a new date-triggered workflow and configure it accordingly.
Q: Can I edit the date rule after setting up a Date-Triggered Workflow?
A: You can edit the number of days before or after the date (e.g., change from 30 days to 60 days). But once you select a date field like Contract End Date, you cannot change it later.
Q: Can I use form task rules, spend task rules, or dynamic approvers in date-triggered workflows?
A: No, these features are not supported in date-triggered workflows.
Q: If there’s no form, how does Tropic know which supplier or department the request belongs to?
A: Tropic uses metadata from the contract, supplier, or document that triggered the workflow to inherit supplier and department values.