Compliance Pipelines (Admin)

What Are Compliance Pipelines?

Compliance pipelines are custom step-by-step workflows that define how compliance tasks progress from start to finish. Each service in your catalog can have its own pipeline — so payroll might follow a different sequence of steps than tax filing or business registration.

Think of a pipeline as a roadmap: it tells you and your clients exactly what happens at each stage of a compliance workflow.

System Pipelines

The portal includes two built-in system pipelines:

Pipeline	What It Does
Legacy Standard	The original 8-step compliance workflow (Scheduled → In Progress → Needs Your Action → Done). Cannot be edited or deleted.
None	No compliance tracking — the service doesn't use a step-based workflow.

You cannot edit or delete system pipelines.

Creating a Custom Pipeline

To create a new pipeline:

1. Go to Admin → Compliance Pipelines in the sidebar.
2. Click Create Pipeline.
3. Enter a name (e.g., "Quarterly BIR Filing") and a description (what this pipeline is for).
4. Click Save to create the pipeline shell.

[Screenshot: create pipeline form]

Now you can add steps to the pipeline.

Adding and Configuring Steps

Each pipeline is made up of steps. To add a step:

1. Open the pipeline you just created.
2. Click Add Step.
3. Enter the step name (e.g., "Gather Client Documents").
4. The slug is auto-generated from the name — you can edit it if needed.
5. Drag steps to reorder them — the order determines how tasks progress through the pipeline.

[Screenshot: pipeline step editor]

Step Properties

Each step has configurable properties that control what happens when a task reaches that step:

Property	What It Does
requiresDocument	Task can't advance past this step until a document is uploaded.
requiresNote	Staff must add a note before advancing to the next step.
clientVisible	The step appears on the client's compliance timeline.
clientActionable	The client can take action at this step (e.g., upload a document or approve).
isTerminal	Marks this step as the final step — tasks that reach it are considered complete.
taskStatusSync	Auto-syncs the task status when the task enters this step.
defaultAssignee	Automatically assigns the task to a specific staff member when it reaches this step.

Task Status Sync Options

When you set taskStatusSync, the task status updates automatically:

• in_progress — Task is actively being worked on.
• waiting_on_client — You're waiting for the client to take action.
• completed — The task is done (usually paired with isTerminal).
• Leave blank if you don't want the task status to change at this step.

Per-Step Assignments

Each pipeline step can have a default assignee — a staff member who should automatically be assigned when a task reaches that step. This is useful for routing tasks through your team based on expertise or workflow stage.

For example:

• "Gather Documents" step → assigned to Junior Associate
• "Review Filing" step → assigned to Senior Compliance Officer
• "Client Approval" step → assigned to Account Manager

When a task advances to the next step, the portal automatically reassigns it to that step's default assignee (if one is set). If no default assignee is configured for a step, the task keeps its current assignment.

Per-task overrides: If you manually assign a task to someone specific, that assignment takes precedence over the step's default. The auto-assignment only applies when advancing steps if the task hasn't been manually reassigned.

To set a default assignee for a step:

1. Open the pipeline editor.
2. Find the step you want to configure.
3. Select a staff member from the Default Assignee dropdown.
4. Save the pipeline.

[Screenshot: step editor with default assignee dropdown]

The last step should be terminal

Make sure the final step in your pipeline has isTerminal checked — this tells the portal that tasks reaching this step are complete.

Using Pipeline Presets

The portal includes preset templates for common workflows. When creating a pipeline, click Load Preset to choose a starting template — you can customize it from there.

[Screenshot: pipeline presets]

Editing a Pipeline

You can edit any non-system pipeline at any time. Changes to step names, properties, or order apply immediately to all tasks using that pipeline.

To edit:

1. Go to Admin → Compliance Pipelines.
2. Find the pipeline and click Edit.
3. Make your changes and click Save.

Deleting a Pipeline

You can only delete a pipeline if no services are currently using it. If services reference the pipeline, you'll need to reassign those services to a different pipeline first.

To delete:

1. Go to Admin → Compliance Pipelines.
2. Find the pipeline and click Delete.
3. Confirm the deletion.

Assigning a Pipeline to a Service

Pipelines are assigned at the service level in the Service Catalog. See Services & Billing for instructions on assigning pipelines to services.

Once a service has a pipeline, every task created for that service automatically inherits the pipeline's step sequence.

How Pipelines Appear on Tasks

When you open a task, the Compliance section in the sidebar displays the pipeline's steps as a visual stepper. The current step is highlighted, and you can click Advance to move the task to the next step.

[Screenshot: task detail with pipeline stepper]

Step Requirements and Contextual Banners

If a step requires a document or note, the task detail page shows contextual banners to guide you:

• Document required: The document upload area highlights with a banner: "A document is required to advance from this step."
• Note required: The comment box highlights with a banner: "A note is required to advance from this step."
• Client action required: A banner appears indicating the client must take action before the task can proceed.

The Advance button is disabled until all step requirements are met. Once you upload the required document or add a note, the button becomes active and you can advance the task.

For linear pipelines (single next-step workflows), the Advance button is simplified to a single action — no need to choose which step comes next.

Pipeline Propagation

When you change a service's pipeline assignment, all pending tasks at step 0 (tasks that haven't started the compliance flow yet) automatically update to use the new pipeline. Tasks already in progress keep their current pipeline to avoid confusion mid-workflow.