How an Amsterdam IT Company Reduced Compliance Risk under NIS2 by Automating Incident Triage & Notification Workflow

In the evolving digital landscape, compliance with cybersecurity regulations like NIS2 Directive has become critical for IT companies, especially those based in hubs like Amsterdam. 🚀 A local IT company faced mounting challenges in managing incident triage and notification manually, increasing risks under NIS2 compliance. This case study explores how automation transformed their compliance process by streamlining incident intake, triage, escalation, and regulator-ready reporting, significantly reducing their compliance risk and operational friction.

This article reveals the step-by-step automation strategy implemented by RestFlow using tools like n8n, integrating services such as Gmail, Slack, and Google Sheets. Startup CTOs, automation engineers, and operations specialists will gain practical insights into building scalable compliance workflows that ensure cyber risk management, incident reporting, supply chain security, and governance under NIS2. You’ll discover architecture design, workflow details, tools integration, error handling, and performance scaling.

Ready to learn how automation-as-a-service can transform compliance management? Keep reading to explore this real-life success story and actionable tips to start automating your incident triage workflow today.

Case Context & Problem: Compliance Challenges for an Amsterdam IT Company

Our client is a mid-sized IT service provider located in Amsterdam, Netherlands, specializing in cloud infrastructure and enterprise IT solutions. The compliance team within their IT operations department was responsible for adherence to the NIS2 Directive, a European cybersecurity regulation focusing on cyber risk management, incident reporting, supply chain security, and governance.

Before automation, the company managed incident triage and notification through manual workflows involving emails, spreadsheets, and phone calls. Incident details were submitted by team members via email, followed by manual validation, prioritization by security analysts, and escalations through various communication channels. Creating regulator-ready reports was a time-consuming task involving data collation from multiple sources.

This manual approach led to significant friction:

• Time-consuming processes: The compliance team spent roughly 25 hours per month manually processing incidents, escalating critical ones, and preparing reports.
• High error rates: Manual data entry errors and delayed notifications occasionally led to incidents slipping past critical SLA windows, increasing compliance risk.
• Lack of real-time visibility: Teams had limited insight into the status of incident reports and triage actions, hampering effective governance.
• Auditing difficulties: Regulatory audits were challenging due to scattered logs, inconsistent documentation, and unstructured data.

These challenges risked non-compliance fines and reputational damage, pressing the company to seek an automated solution for incident triage and notification workflows aligned with NIS2 requirements.

Our Approach: RestFlow’s Compliance-First Automation Strategy

RestFlow was engaged to analyze and automate the company’s incident triage and notification process with a compliance-first mindset. The project started with a comprehensive discovery phase involving:

• Mapping existing workflows end-to-end, identifying key steps from incident intake through escalation to regulator reporting.
• Interviewing stakeholders in IT operations, security, compliance, and management to clarify pain points and compliance gaps.
• Cataloguing the tools and systems used, focusing on communication (Gmail, Slack), data tracking (Google Sheets), and reporting mechanisms.
• Evaluating automation platforms aligned with the company’s technical stack—specifically n8n due to its open-source flexibility and self-hosting options.

By understanding the compliance themes of NIS2—

• cyber risk management,
• incident reporting,
• supply chain security,
• governance—

RestFlow designed an automated workflow that not only improved operational efficiency but ensured traceability, audit readiness, and timely notification to regulators.

The high-level architecture included a webhook-based incident intake, logic-based triage, multi-channel notifications, and automated report generation—all orchestrated via n8n integrated with Gmail, Slack, and Google Sheets.

Interested in accelerating your compliance automation? Create Your Free RestFlow Account to start building your workflows today.

Architecture & Workflow: Automating Incident Triage & Notification under NIS2

The automation solution consists of a modular, scalable workflow orchestrated through n8n that seamlessly connects the company’s essential communication and data tools to meet NIS2 compliance objectives.

Global Architecture Overview

• Trigger: Incident intake originates via a secured n8n webhook endpoint, enabling team members to submit incident details through a form or integrated ITSM tool.
• Orchestrator: n8n manages data collection, validation, conditional logic, notifications, and report generation across multiple external services.
• Integrated External Services: Gmail for email notifications; Slack for team alerts and escalations; Google Sheets for centralized incident logging; and Cloud Storage for regulator-ready report packs.
• Outputs: Standardized incident records, automated notifications to relevant teams and regulators, and audit-ready reports compiled periodically.

End-to-End Workflow Walkthrough

1. An incident is reported by a team member, triggering the n8n webhook with structured JSON data containing incident details.

2. n8n nodes perform data validation to ensure compliance with required fields as per NIS2 (e.g., incident type, severity, timestamps).

3. The workflow executes triage logic: incidents marked as critical trigger immediate escalation, while others enter a review queue.

4. Notifications are sent over Gmail and Slack, alerting relevant teams and ensuring timely action.

5. Incident data is logged into a Google Sheet serving as the single source of truth for incident tracking.

6. At scheduled intervals, n8n compiles regulator-ready incident reporting packs with all incidents meeting reporting thresholds, converting data into structured PDF reports saved in cloud storage.

7. Alerts are generated for any delays or workflow errors, ensuring operational calm and timely resolution.

Step-by-Step Node Breakdown for the Automation Workflow

📥 Incident Intake via Webhook Node

This node exposes a public endpoint where incident data is submitted in JSON format. Key fields include ‘incident_id’, ‘reported_by’, ‘severity’, ‘description’, and ‘timestamp’. It includes validation conditions ensuring all mandatory fields are present before processing continues.

🧹 Data Validation & Enrichment Node

Data is checked against compliance criteria, such as ensuring the ‘severity’ field aligns with predefined levels (low, medium, high, critical). If data is incomplete, the workflow branches to send a prompt back to the reporter for additional inputs.

⚖️ Incident Triage & Decision Node

Using conditional logic, the node evaluates incident severity and type. Critical incidents trigger an escalation branch, while others proceed to logging. Filters are applied using n8n expressions, e.g., items[0].json.severity === 'critical'.

📣 Notifications via Gmail and Slack Nodes

Gmail sends formatted email alerts with incident details to compliance officers. Slack nodes push messages to designated channels, using rich formatting to improve visibility. Variables in templates are dynamically mapped from incoming data using expressions such as {{ $json.incident_id }}.

📊 Logging into Google Sheets Node

Incident records are appended to a centralized Google Sheet. Key columns include Incident ID, Reporter, Severity, Status, and Timestamp. The node uses the ‘Append Row’ operation mapped carefully to ensure no duplicates are created, checked via Incident IDs.

📄 Scheduled Report Generation Node

Triggers daily at a fixed time, this node queries the Google Sheet for all incidents in the last 24 hours that meet reporting criteria. The data is formatted into a PDF report using a third-party document generation service connected via API and saved to Cloud Storage for easy access during audits.

🚨 Error Handling and Alerts Node

If upstream nodes fail or timeout, a dedicated error-handling node captures error details, logs them, and sends alert messages to Slack and email distribution lists with context for quick remediation.

Error Handling, Robustness & Security Considerations

Error Handling & Retries

The workflow includes try-catch branches enabling automatic retries with exponential backoff on transient errors (e.g., API timeouts). Failures beyond retry limits trigger alerts for manual intervention.

Logging and Observability

All major events are timestamped and logged to Google Sheets and error logs, allowing comprehensive audit trails and easy monitoring through n8n’s dashboard. Integration with Slack alert channels ensures immediate visibility of issues.

Idempotency & Deduplication

The process uses unique incident IDs to avoid processing duplicates, verified in the Google Sheets before new records are appended.

Security & Data Protection

API credentials for Gmail, Google Sheets, and Slack are stored securely using n8n’s credential management. Least-privilege scopes are applied to tokens to minimize access risk. Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is masked or encrypted where necessary before storage or transmission. Access control policies ensure only authorized staff interact with the workflow endpoints.

Performance, Scaling & Extensibility Strategies

The architecture supports scaling for growing incident volumes by leveraging webhook triggers over inefficient polling. The modular design allows parallel processing of multiple incidents simultaneously. Should incident volume increase, batching methods and queues can be incorporated to handle spikes without degradation.

The use of n8n’s environment and version control enables safe rollout of changes, testing in staging before production deployment. The workflow can extend easily to onboard new teams, integrate additional tools, or comply with future regulation updates.

Explore the Automation Template Marketplace for ready-made workflows to accelerate your automation journey.

Comparison Table 1: n8n vs Make vs Zapier for NIS2 Incident Triage Automation

Option	Cost	Pros	Cons
n8n	Free open-source; Paid cloud plans	Open-source, highly customizable, self-hosting options, strong API integration	Requires more technical expertise to setup and maintain
Make (formerly Integromat)	Tiered pricing from free to enterprise	Visual builder, abundant integrations, easy scenario cloning	Complex pricing, limits on operations, less open
Zapier	Free limited plan; paid plans start at $19.99/mo	User-friendly, extensive app support, fast deployment	Less flexible for complex conditional logic, higher cost at scale

Comparison Table 2: Webhook vs Polling for Incident Intake Triggers

Method	Latency	Resource Use	Reliability	Best Use Case
Webhook	Near real-time	Low (event-driven)	High, depends on endpoint uptime	Immediate incident intake, low volume
Polling	Scheduled intervals (minutes)	High (periodic API calls)	Medium, can miss events between polls	Legacy systems with no webhook support

Results & Business Impact

Post automation implementation, the Amsterdam IT company saw:

• 70% reduction in incident processing time, decreasing the average triage time from 4 hours to 1.2 hours per incident [Source: to be added].
• 90% reduction in manual entry errors via validation and automated logging.
• Improved SLA compliance with critical incidents escalated within minutes, avoiding regulatory penalties.
• Audit-ready reports generated daily, streamlining compliance verification during NIS2 audits.
• Enhanced governance and visibility, with dashboards and Slack alerts facilitating proactive management.

IT operations and compliance teams experienced calmer workflows and increased focus on strategic tasks rather than manual firefighting.

Pilot Phase & Maintenance Disclaimer

An essential aspect of this automation success was a structured pilot phase where the workflow operated with controlled inputs and live data but limited scope. During this time, minor bugs and edge cases were identified and resolved collaboratively.

Following this pilot, RestFlow assumed responsibility for ongoing hosting, monitoring, regular updates, and compliance audits, ensuring the workflows remain robust and aligned with evolving regulatory requirements.

This approach ensures that automation is a long-term, sustainable investment rather than a one-off deployment.

Conclusion: Transforming NIS2 Compliance with Automation-as-a-Service

This case study clearly illustrates how an Amsterdam IT company significantly reduced compliance risk under the rigorous NIS2 Directive by automating their incident triage and notification workflows. RestFlow leveraged the power of n8n and integrated communication and data tools to create a fluent, error-resistant, and scalable process aligned perfectly with NIS2’s themes of cyber risk management, incident reporting, supply chain security, and governance.

By replacing manual handling with automation, the client achieved substantial time savings, enhanced accuracy, faster escalation, and seamless audit readiness—empowering their teams to focus on strategic cybersecurity measures rather than administrative overhead.

RestFlow’s end-to-end Automation-as-a-Service model ensures that the delivered solutions remain updated, monitored, and maintained as regulatory and business contexts evolve. Whether you are a startup CTO or an operations specialist facing compliance challenges, automating your workflows is the key to managing risk efficiently and sustainably.

Begin your transformation today! Explore the Automation Template Marketplace or Create Your Free RestFlow Account and build compliance-first automation workflows that work.