Reminders and renewals
What this page is — how an obligation reaches a person before its date, exactly when the reminder emails go out and to whom, and the two tools for renewals: one-click Renew and the Renewal risk (AI) watchlist.
What it is for — so a correct date in the register produces an action, rather than sitting there being true while the notice window closes.
The problem it solves — a correct date in the register helps nobody if no one is told before it passes.
Route: /org/papers/obligations · Permissions: Manage obligations and reminders. to set
reminders and renew; Use AI drafting/extraction/Q&A for documents. for the renewal-risk card.
1. What it is
A register nobody looks at is as good as no register. Papers has three ways to push a date at someone, and they are not interchangeable:
| Route | Reaches | Assigns ownership | Stops when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reminder email | The document owner | No | The obligation is done or cancelled, or its date passes |
| Push to Tasks | The document owner, as a task | Yes — a task with an assignee | The task is closed. Closing it does not complete the obligation |
| Calendar feed | Whoever subscribed | No | The obligation is done or cancelled |
And two for renewals:
| Tool | Does | Changes anything |
|---|---|---|
| Renew | Creates a renewal draft of an expiring document | Yes — a new draft document |
| Renewal risk (AI) | Ranks what is most likely to lapse, with a recommended action each | No — advice only, not stored |
2. Why you would use it
The renewal that lapses is almost always on a document someone recorded correctly. The failure is not the data; it is that nobody was looking on the right day.
- Reminders remove the need to look. The owner is emailed every morning inside the window, so a busy week does not swallow a single notice.
- Push to Tasks puts the work where work lives. A 90-day exit notice needs a letter drafted, approved and posted — that belongs in someone's task list, not a register.
- Renew shortens the path from noticing to doing to one click and a confirmation, with the parties and data already carried forward.
- Renewal risk looks where you would not. An auto-renewing contract with a notice window closing in nine days is exactly what a person scanning expiry dates misses — the expiry is months away, the deadline that matters is not.
3. When reminder emails are actually sent
This is the part most worth reading, because it does not match the drawer's wording.
| Rule | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| When the check runs | Once a day at 03:00 server time — the PAPERS_OBLIGATION_REMINDERS job |
| What qualifies | open obligations with a due date, whose due date is still ahead and falls within Remind (days before) days |
| How often | Every day inside the window — one email per obligation per day |
| Last email | The day before the due date. None is sent on the due date itself |
| After the date passes | No more emails. The obligation stays open in Overdue, silently |
| Recipient | The document owner, falling back to its creator — not the party named on the obligation, not the assignee of a pushed task |
| Template | Papers - Obligation Reminder (papers_obligation_reminder), carrying the obligation, the document title and the due date |
| A failed send | Not recorded as sent, so it is retried the next morning |
| Audit | Each sent email adds obligation_reminder_sent to the document's timeline |
The drawer describes 0 as "remind on the due date". Reminders go out at 03:00, and by then a due date already counts as passed. With 0, the window is empty and no email is ever sent; with any other value, the last
email arrives the day before.
Use 1 for a reminder on the last day, and never 0.
4. Step by step
Set a reminder — on Add Obligation, set Remind (days before). Obligations the AI extracted carry no explicit value and use the default of 7.
Push an obligation to Tasks — the list icon on an open register row (see
the register).
Renew a document
- In Expiring documents, press Renew on the row.
- Confirm. "Renewal draft created" — you are taken to the new draft.
- Check the new validity expiry date (§5), update what changed — price, term, contacts.
- Take the draft through its own approval and signature lifecycle.
Run renewal risk
- Select the project in the top bar — the card analyses the same project as the rest of the page.
- Pick a horizon: 30d, 60d, 90d or 180d.
- Analyze. Work the ranked list from the top.
5. Field reference
Remind (days before)
| Value | Emails |
|---|---|
| (not set) | Treated as 7 |
7 | Seven — one each morning from 7 days before to the day before |
1 | One — the morning before the due date |
0 | None (§3) |
| Non-numeric | Treated as 7 |
Renew
| Shown on | Every row of Expiring documents — documents whose validity expires within 90 days |
| Gated by | Manage obligations and reminders. only. Unlike Amend ▾ → Renewal, it ignores the type's Allows amendment switch |
| Creates | A child document with relation renewal, titled "original (Renewal)", every field value carried forward |
| New expiry | The original's expiry plus the original's term — where term = expiry minus the date the original was created |
| No derivable term | The draft is left without a validity date, for you to set |
| The original | Untouched, and keeps its obligations. The renewal starts with none |
| Messages | "Renewal draft created" / "Failed to create renewal" |
Renewal risk (AI)
| Utility | papers_renewal_risk · 400 credits estimated, 1,600 maximum |
| Horizon | 30, 60, 90 or 180 days. Overdue items always rank first, whatever the horizon |
| Reads | Document validity expiries; open renewal, expiry, notice and payment obligations; filled term, auto-renewal and notice-period fields |
| Returns | A ranked list — document, risk (high / medium / low), driving due date, reason, recommended action — plus a summary and caveats |
| Stored | No. Leaving the page discards it; changing the project or horizon clears it |
| A failed run | Reports why — credits, permission or server — and is not charged |
| Empty result | "No lapse risks detected inside the horizon." — try a longer one before concluding |
6. Worked example
A facilities manager adds an obligation on the office lease: notice · "Give landlord 90-day exit
notice by registered post" · due Friday 20 March · Remind 7 days before.
What the lease's owner — the office manager, who created the document — actually receives:
| Morning of | Email? |
|---|---|
| Thursday 12 March | No — 8 days out |
| Friday 13 March | Yes — first reminder |
| Saturday 14 – Wednesday 18 March | Yes, one each morning |
| Thursday 19 March | Yes — last reminder |
| Friday 20 March (due) | No |
| Monday 23 March | No — overdue obligations are not reminded |
Seven emails, all to the office manager. The facilities manager who added the obligation receives none, because reminders go to the document owner.
On Monday 16 March the office manager pushes the obligation to Tasks, so drafting the letter is tracked; the task lands with them as the document owner. The letter goes out Wednesday. They close the task — and then, separately, press Done on the obligation, because closing the task does not. The Thursday email does not arrive.
Meanwhile a quarterly Renewal risk run on a 90-day horizon flags "AMC — Chiller Maintenance" as
high: expires in 34 days, auto-renews, notice obligation open, no renewal drafted. Recommended action:
start the renewal now or send non-renewal notice. The manager presses Renew on it in Expiring
documents.
7. The admin contract
| Must be true | Where | What breaks without it |
|---|---|---|
| The Papers - Obligation Reminder template is installed, active and switched on | Communication Channels → templates | Reminders fail silently. A delivery-readiness banner appears on the Obligations page |
| An email gateway is mapped to the Papers group | Communication Channels | Same |
The PAPERS_OBLIGATION_REMINDERS job is enabled | Job monitor | No reminder is ever evaluated |
| Every document has an owner with an email address | The document | That obligation's reminder is skipped and logged — nobody is told |
| Documents carry a validity expiry date | Finalize and numbering | They never reach Expiring documents, so Renew is never offered and renewal risk cannot see them |
| The role holds Use AI drafting/extraction/Q&A for documents. | Role editor | No renewal-risk card |
papers_renewal_risk is active and enabled | Orbit AI Flow, /org/ai-utilities | The card's run fails |
The owner row is the one that bites. Reminders follow the document owner; when that person leaves, reassign ownership of their documents or their obligations go unreminded.
8. Downstream
| When… | Then |
|---|---|
| The due date is edited | The reminder window moves with it |
| The obligation is marked done or cancelled | Reminders stop that night |
| The document's owner changes | Future reminders go to the new owner |
| A renewal draft is created | It has its own lifecycle and no obligations — extract or add them once it is finalised |
| The renewal is finalised | The original is not automatically superseded — see Amend, renew, supersede |
9. Don't confuse this with…
| Calendar feeds | Show dates in a calendar. They notify nobody |
| Approval reminders | Chase an approver on a pending approval — a workflow feature, not an obligation |
| Signature reminders | Chase a signatory — see Sending for signature |
| Portfolio insights | Cross-project analysis on the Papers Analytics page. Renewal risk is this project only |
10. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause |
|---|---|
| Nobody received a reminder | The template or gateway is not configured — check the banner on the Obligations page |
| One obligation never reminds | Remind is set to 0, the document owner has no email, or the date has already passed |
| No email arrived on the due date | None ever does — the last one is the day before (§3) |
| The owner gets an email every day | By design: one per day inside the window |
| The wrong person is reminded | Reminders go to the document owner (or creator), not the obligation's party or the task assignee |
| Overdue obligations stopped emailing | Reminders stop once the date passes |
| Closing the task did not complete the obligation | They are independent — mark the obligation done too |
| Renew created a draft with a strange expiry | The term is measured from the original's creation date (§5) |
| Renew worked on a type that forbids amendment | Renew does not check the switch, unlike the workspace's Amend menu |
| The renewal-risk result vanished | It is never stored. Re-run |
| Renewal risk missed a contract | It has no expiry date and no dated renewal or notice obligation — nothing to see |