Date-Triggered Workflows automate tasks based on contract, document, or supplier dates. You don’t need to track deadlines manually. Whether you're managing renewals, compliance reviews, or budgeting, these workflows help the right people take action at the right time.
💡 Use Date-Triggered Workflows when you want tasks to start automatically based on dates, instead of someone filling out a form. They're ideal for things like contract renewals, vendor reviews, or offboarding tasks that need to happen on schedule.
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
Procurement: Stop checking contracts manually. Set tasks to trigger before key dates, like assigning the Contract Owner to review pricing 45 days before renewal.
Legal & Security: Automate compliance checks when documents like DPAs or SOC 2s are about to expire. No spreadsheets or reminders needed.
Finance: Trigger budget reviews before contract end dates to avoid surprises on renewals or vendor costs.
IT: Schedule off-boarding tasks to start a few days before a vendor contract ends, so access is removed on time.
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
Once a date-triggered workflow is activated, it runs in the background.
At 9am EST on business days, Tropic checks for any contracts, documents, or suppliers that match the trigger conditions.
For each match, Tropic:
- Creates a General Request
- Assigns the tasks from your workflow
- Displays the request in the General Requests dashboard with "System" as the requestor
- Adds a note in the related record’s Activity Feed
If your organization has a Renewal Reminder Workflow, Tropic will create a task on the Renewal Reminder Date. The task appears in the Action Center and is assigned to the Contract Owner.
While the workflow is active, Tropic does not send renewal reminder emails. If it is turned off, email reminders resume automatically.
💡 Tasks follow the same logic as other workflows. You choose the assignee—whether a specific person, the Contract Owner, or the Document Owner. Tropic uses metadata to assign them automatically.
Example: If you set a workflow to trigger on the Contract End Date and three contracts match tomorrow, Tropic will create three General Requests the next morning, each with its own tasks.
Activate and Customize Your Renewal Workflow
Tropic includes a preconfigured renewal reminder workflow that’s inactive by default. The workflow is triggered 90 days before a contract’s renewal or opt-out date and creates a task for the Contract Owner. The task appears in the Action Center and in the contract’s Activity Feed.
To activate it, go to Settings > General Workflows > Inactive tab, find the Renewal Reminder Workflow, and click Activate.
💡 If left inactive, Tropic will continue sending email-based renewal reminders. Once activated, Tropic stops emails and assigns tasks instead.
You can customize the workflow by:
- Adjusting the timing (for example, 60 days before instead of 90)
- Adding a form to collect renewal details
- Assigning the task to a different person
💡 You cannot change the trigger type later. If you want a different trigger (like Contract End Date), you’ll need to create a new workflow.
If you want your workflow to include an action, like assigning someone to review the contract or submit a form, follow these steps:
- 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.
Renewal Reminders and Task Completion
When a Renewal Reminder Workflow is triggered, Tropic creates a request with tasks, for example, “Submit Renewal Request.”
- If you complete the renewal request from within that task, the task will auto-complete as expected.
- If you submit a renewal request separately (outside of the task), the task will not auto-complete. It will remain open and continue sending reminders until you manually complete or skip it.
💡 To avoid duplicate reminders, always complete the renewal request from within the open task when possible.
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 turn off the Renewal Reminder Workflow if I don’t want to use it?
A: Yes. You can deactivate the Renewal Reminder Workflow at any time in Settings > General Workflows. If it’s inactive, Tropic will continue sending email-based renewal reminders instead.
Q: What happens if I submit a renewal request outside of the Renewal Reminder task?
A: If you complete a renewal request outside of the Renewal Reminder task created by a date-triggered workflow, the task will not auto-complete. This means you may still see the open task in your Action Center or receive reminders until the task is manually skipped or closed. To stop these reminders, complete or skip the task in the original request.
Q: Can the Renewal Reminder Workflow be customized based on spend category or amount?
A: No. Date-Triggered Workflows don’t support spend-based task rules. For that type of logic, use a Form-Triggered Workflow instead.
Q: What if a contract is non-renewable, like with a consultant?
A: Tropic only triggers the Renewal Reminder Workflow for contracts set to Automatic Renewal or Optional Renewal. If a contract is marked Perpetual or Non-Renewing, the system will not send a renewal reminder. Most consulting agreements fall under Non-Renewing and will be excluded automatically.
Q: Does Tropic already provide a default renewal reminder workflow?
A: Yes. Tropic automatically creates a preconfigured workflow to replace email-based renewal reminders. The workflow includes a default task assigned to the Contract Owner and is triggered 90 days before the contract’s Renewal Reminder Date. You can customize this workflow, or deactivate it to return to email-based reminders.
Q: Can I use this to set up recurring tasks every month or quarter?
A: 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.