Review Cycles and Expiry
Two different clocks that are easy to confuse. Review means look at this again. Expiry means this stops being valid.
Where to find it
On a record, the Control panel sets both. Architect Panel → Data → Document Control shows what is overdue, what falls due soon, and what expires soon.
Why they are separate
A policy reviewed every two years does not become invalid on the day it is due — it becomes overdue, and somebody should look at it. A DBS check, an insurance certificate or a licence genuinely stops being worth anything on its date.
Treating expiry as a review means a document nobody has looked at is still presented as current. Treating review as expiry means everything falls off a cliff and people stop trusting the dates.
Recording a review resets the clock
Recording one meets the obligation the sweep opened and sets the next date from the cycle. That is the loop: a date, a reminder, an act, a new date.
A review recorded against a document with no cycle simply records that somebody looked.
Expiry has a warning window and a choice
The warning window decides how far ahead the reminders start — thirty days before is the default shape. On the day itself, the document either:
- notifies — somebody is told and the document stays as it is, or
- withdraws — the document is withdrawn automatically.
Choose withdrawal only where continuing to present the document is worse than losing access to it. It cannot be undone.
The clocks only run if the tasks do
Two scheduled tasks are involved and both ship switched off: one opens the clocks and the other fires the reminders. With only the first enabled, dates are tracked and nobody is told — which looks exactly like the feature not working.
The preview of the first task says so explicitly when the second is disabled.
Expiring is not the same as expired
The register separates them, because the useful list is the one you can still act on. A certificate expiring in three weeks can be renewed; one that expired last month is an incident.
Worked example
An organisation sets a twelve-month review on its policies and a real expiry on its ninety insurance certificates, with thirty days’ warning and notify rather than withdraw. The brokers get chased a month out, the register shows what is coming, and nothing disappears from a case at midnight.
Recommendations
- Use expiry only for things that genuinely stop being valid.
- Prefer notify to withdraw unless presenting the document is the risk.
- Enable both tasks, and read both previews first.
- Set the warning window to the renewal lead time, not to a round number.