Compliance Report
When to Use
Use Compliance Report when:
• You need to demonstrate how a document was handled, for example alongside a signed contract or an approved invoice.
• You are working in a regulated or audited process and need portable evidence of what happened, when, and by whom.
• You want a machine-readable record that another system can ingest for compliance monitoring.
• You want to give clients or stakeholders visible proof of the checks and approvals a document went through, without sharing the underlying file history directly.
How It Works
A file reaches the Compliance Report action in a workflow.
Willow360 compiles the report from the file's history and metadata, covering document details, extracted data, the people involved, a timeline of events, decision evidence such as approvals, output locations, and verification information.
The report is generated in your chosen format, PDF or JSON, and uploaded to the configured cloud location.
The file continues through the rest of the workflow as normal. The report is stored separately from the document itself.
Key Rules and Considerations
• Compliance Report is an automatic action. It requires no user input and does not pause the workflow.
• The report reflects everything recorded in the file's history up to the point the action runs, so placing it later in the workflow captures more of the document's journey.
• PDF output is intended for people to read. JSON output is intended for other systems to consume, such as a compliance monitoring or archiving platform.
• If a file leaves the workflow through an Exit Workflow action before reaching Compliance Report, no report is generated for that file, because later actions do not run once a file has exited. The exit is still recorded in the file history.
• The report is a separate file from the document it describes. Uploading the report does not affect where the processed document itself is stored.
• You can include more than one Compliance Report action in a workflow, for example generating a PDF for internal filing and a JSON report for an external audit system, from different points in the same workflow.
Configuration
There are two things to configure in the Compliance Report action.
Report Format
Choose PDF for a human-readable document, or JSON for a machine-readable structured file.
Upload Location
Choose where the report is stored. Supported destinations are SharePoint, OneDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox, the same as other export actions in Willow360.
Practical Examples
Contract audit trail: a contract approval workflow generates a PDF Compliance Report immediately after WillowSign completes, giving legal and compliance teams a ready-made record of who approved and signed the document, and when, without any manual write-up.
Regulatory archive: a regulated-documents workflow produces a JSON Compliance Report for every file and uploads it to a dedicated archive folder, building a structured audit trail that a separate compliance system can read directly.
Client-facing proof of process: a professional services workflow includes a PDF Compliance Report with every delivered document, giving clients visible evidence of the checks a document went through before it reached them.
Internal investigation support: a finance workflow generates a Compliance Report for every processed invoice, so that if a question is ever raised about a specific payment, the full processing history is already on file and easy to retrieve.
Best Practices
Place Compliance Report towards the end of the workflow so the report captures as much of the document's processing history as possible, including any final approval or signing steps.
Use PDF when the report is intended for people, such as internal reviewers, clients, or auditors, and JSON when it will be consumed by another system.
Store Compliance Reports in a clearly named, access-controlled folder separate from the working documents, so audit records are not accidentally altered or deleted alongside day-to-day files.
Combine Compliance Report with Add Text to Document if you also want a brief, human-readable summary attached directly to the processed document itself, in addition to the standalone report.
Troubleshooting
Report not appearing in the destination: Check that the upload location credentials are correctly configured and that the connected cloud account has write access to the chosen folder.
Report is missing expected history detail: Confirm the Compliance Report action is placed after the workflow steps you expect it to capture. Any steps that run after the action will not be included.
JSON report cannot be parsed by the receiving system: Confirm the receiving system expects the field structure Willow360 produces. Contact us at ccs@its-group.com if you need confirmation of the report's structure.
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FAQs
Q: Does Compliance Report modify the document being processed?
A: No. It is not a file-modifying action. The document itself is unchanged. The action generates a separate report file.
Q: Can I generate both a PDF and a JSON report for the same file?
A: Yes. Add two Compliance Report actions to the workflow, one configured for PDF and one for JSON, uploading to the same or different locations as needed.
Q: Does the report include information from steps that come after the action in the workflow?
A: No. The report reflects the file's history up to the point the action runs. Steps later in the workflow are not included.
Q: Where can I see the same information without generating a report?
A: The underlying data is always available in the file's File History, viewable from the File View for anyone with access to the file.