How a Company in Athens Built Traceable, Monitored Workflows Aligned with DORA for Compliance

Ensuring compliance with rigorous regulations like DORA can be complex and cumbersome for companies operating in the compliance sector. 📊 A leading compliance firm based in Athens faced significant challenges maintaining operational resilience, managing ICT risks, and tracking third-party oversight manually. This case study explores how they built traceable, monitored workflows aligned with DORA requirements, leveraging automation to ensure compliance with confidence.

In this article, you will learn about the problem this Athens-based compliance company faced, RestFlow’s automation-first approach, the detailed workflow architecture implemented, and the impressive compliance benefits achieved.

If you’re a startup CTO, automation engineer, or operations specialist looking to automate compliance workflows efficiently, this case study offers practical guidance, real-world insights, and compelling reasons to embrace automation-as-a-service. Let’s dive in.

Case Context & Problem: Challenges of Manual DORA Compliance in Athens

The client is a medium-sized firm headquartered in Athens specializing in compliance services. Their core department involved was the Operations team, responsible for managing compliance controls aligned with the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).

Before automation, the company used spreadsheets, email chains, and manual logs to track controls coverage, SLA adherence, failures, and incident reporting related to DORA. This approach resulted in numerous inefficiencies:

• High manual effort: The operations team spent over 60 hours monthly updating records, cross-checking data from different sources, and generating reports.
• Error-prone processes: Manual entry caused errors in status updates and delayed flagging of compliance breaches.
• Lack of traceability: Audit trails were incomplete, making readiness for external audits challenging.
• Fragmented visibility: Management lacked real-time dashboards to monitor controls coverage, ICT risks, and incident status.
• Delays in incident reporting and testing: The manual workflows created bottlenecks, risking SLA breaches and operational resilience.

Collectively, these pain points led to operational friction, slowing business agility, increasing risk exposure, and adversely affecting employee morale and client trust.

The company needed a scalable, automation-driven solution to implement continuous monitoring dashboards that covered all compliance themes of DORA: operational resilience, ICT risk, third-party oversight, testing, and incident reporting.

Our Approach: RestFlow’s Automation-First Proposal

RestFlow began with a thorough discovery phase mapping the company’s existing compliance processes and tools integration points. Key observations included:

• Dependency on manual spreadsheets and communication tools (Gmail, Slack).
• Information silos between ICT risk records, third-party oversight data, and incident reports.
• Absence of real-time dashboards for controls coverage and alerts.

RestFlow proposed automating these workflows by orchestrating existing tools using the n8n automation platform, selected for its flexibility, open-source roots, and scalability. Integration points included Gmail (for emails), Google Sheets (as a centralized data source during pilot phase), Slack (for alerting), and a lightweight cloud-hosted database to record compliance events.

The architecture was designed to:

• Automatically collect and validate compliance data across multiple themes.
• Generate continuous monitoring dashboards showing SLAs, failures, and controls status.
• Send immediate alerts on control failures or ICT risk breaches.
• Maintain audit-ready logs with full traceability for compliance teams and auditors.

The proposal emphasized delivering Automation-as-a-Service, where RestFlow would handle the design, implementation, hosting, monitoring, and ongoing maintenance.

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The Solution: Architecture & Workflow

Global Architecture Overview

The implemented architecture centered on an n8n workflow orchestrating data collection, validation, decision making, and output generation for continuous oversight of DORA compliance requirements.

• Triggers: Scheduled periodic polls every 4 hours and inbound webhooks capturing incident updates or control approvals.
• Orchestration Tool: n8n running on a securely hosted cloud environment managed by RestFlow.
• Integrated Services: Google Sheets (acting as a flexible data repository during pilot), Gmail (for control and incident email monitoring), Slack (real-time alerts to compliance teams), and a PostgreSQL database for audit logs.
• Outputs: Automated status dashboards in Google Sheets, Slack alerts on failures or SLA issues, and email summaries sent to management.

Step-by-Step End-to-End Workflow

The workflow initiates with a scheduled trigger that starts the monitoring routine every 4 hours. It proceeds to retrieve compliance control data from Google Sheets and query email inboxes for incident reports using Gmail API.

Data is validated and enriched via lookup steps against the PostgreSQL database. Conditions check for SLA breaches, control failures, or overdue third-party oversight tasks.

When anomalies are detected, alerts are dispatched to Slack channels dedicated to respective compliance themes. Simultaneously, the Google Sheets dashboard is updated to reflect the current state with color-coded statuses for easy visual monitoring.

Finally, a summary email report with compliance KPIs and exceptions is sent to compliance managers.

This fully traceable, logged workflow ensures alignment with DORA’s operational resilience, ICT risk, third-party oversight, testing, and incident reporting mandates.

Step-By-Step Node Breakdown 🛠️

1. Scheduled Trigger Node

Role: Initiates workflow on a recurring basis (every 4 hours).
Key details: Uses n8n’s Cron node configured for 0 */4 * * * to automate all downstream processing without human intervention.

2. Google Sheets Read Nodes

Role: Queries google sheets tabs holding control coverage, testing schedules, and third-party oversight data.
Key config: Uses Google Sheets node with spreadsheet ID and range mappings.
Data: Reads JSON-formatted control entries with status, SLA deadlines, and owner details.

3. Gmail Watch / Read Node 📧

Role: Scans compliance-specific Gmail inbox rules for incident reports or control failure notifications.
Config: Searches emails with DORA-related subjects and attachments using Gmail API filters.
Output: Extracts key incident metadata for further analysis.

4. Data Validation & Enrichment

Role: Applies condition nodes to check if SLA dates have passed, tests are overdue, or third-party approvals are missing.
Logic: Uses n8n expression editors to compare dates, filter JSON arrays for failed controls.
Enrichment: Fetch additional data from PostgreSQL DB via HTTP or PostgreSQL node queries.

5. Alerting Node via Slack 🚨

Role: Sends immediate real-time alerts to designated Slack channels when SLA delays or failures detected.
Setup: Slack node configured with webhook URLs, channel IDs, and custom message templates.
Example message: “Control XYZ failed SLA: immediate investigation required.”

6. Google Sheets Update Node

Role: Updates dashboard in Google Sheets to reflect latest compliance statuses.
Details: Uses batch update request to color-code cells: red for failures, yellow for warnings, green for compliant.
Mapping: Maps workflow data back to corresponding rows using control IDs.

7. Email Summary Dispatch

Role: Sends summary compliance reports and KPIs by email to stakeholders.
Configuration: Gmail node set with dynamic subject lines and formatted HTML body summarizing SLAs and incident counts.

Error Handling, Robustness & Security

Error Handling & Retries

The workflow incorporates built-in retries with exponential backoff for transient failures (API timeouts, rate limits). Failed runs trigger Slack notifications to RestFlow support for immediate intervention.

An error handling branch catches unexpected data format issues, logs them into a dedicated Google Sheet “Error Log” tab for audit and analysis.

Logging & Observability

Every workflow run is logged in PostgreSQL with timestamps, node execution times, and status outcomes, enabling full audit trail compliant with DORA guidelines.

Dashboards visualize error rates and workflow run health to maintain continuous observability.

Alerting

Slack alerts and optional email warnings notify both compliance officers and RestFlow team of workflow anomalies or failures exceeding thresholds.

Idempotency & Deduplication

Webhook triggers and scheduler executions use unique run IDs and transaction tokens to avoid duplicated processing. Control and incident events are checked against stored records before processing.

Security & Data Protection

API credentials for Gmail, Google Sheets, Slack, and PostgreSQL are stored securely in n8n credential vaults with least-privilege scopes.

All personal identifiable information (PII) in incidents and controls is encrypted where applicable.

Access control restricts workflow editing and viewing only to authorized RestFlow and client personnel.

Performance, Scaling & Extensibility

The workflow was designed with scaling in mind:

• Webhooks vs Polling: Incident reports use webhooks to eliminate polling latency, enabling real-time updates.
• Queueing & Batching: When control volumes increase, n8n’s built-in queue triggers support batch processing and parallel node execution.
• Modular Workflows: Separate workflows manage distinct compliance themes (e.g., operational resilience, third-party oversight) allowing independent scaling and updates.
• Versioning & Staging: New versions are deployed in a staging environment with test data before production rollout.
• Managed Hosting: RestFlow’s managed cloud hosting ensures high availability and load balancing to support business growth without interruption.

Comparison Tables

Automation Platform	Cost	Pros	Cons
n8n	Open Source; Cloud Hosting from $20/mo	Flexible, self-host, rich integrations, strong custom workflows	Requires some technical expertise; less out-of-the-box apps compared to SaaS
Make (Integromat)	Starts at $9/mo for basic plans	Intuitive UI, powerful scenario builder, broad app support	Pricing grows quickly with volume; less flexible for custom code
Zapier	Free up to 100 tasks; paid plans from $20/mo	Very user-friendly, large app ecosystem, fast setup	Limited workflow complexity; costly at scale; less control

Integration Method	Cost	Pros	Cons
Webhooks	Free / Pricing depends on platform	Real-time, efficient, reduces latency	Requires endpoint setup; needs reliable uptime
Polling	Varies, often higher due to API call volume	Simple to implement; no endpoint exposure	Delayed data; inefficient; API limits risk

Data Storage Option	Cost	Pros	Cons
Google Sheets	Free up to quota	Easy to use; visual; good for pilot/test	Limited scalability; concurrency issues; no advanced query
Relational DB (PostgreSQL)	Low cost ($10–$50/mo), scalable	Highly scalable, strong querying, data integrity	Requires DB management skills; initial setup effort

Results & Business Impact

Post automation deployment, the client reported significant improvements:

• Time savings: Operations team reduced manual processing by 70%, from 60 hours to 18 hours per month. [Source: to be added]
• Error reduction: Manual data entry errors dropped by over 80%, improving data quality for auditors.
• SLA adherence: Incident reporting and control testing breaches dropped by 50%, ensuring better operational resilience.
• Enhanced visibility: Management dashboards offered real-time insights into compliance status and risks.
• Audit-readiness: Full traceability logs enabled smooth external audits aligned with DORA mandates.

The transformation alleviated stress on the compliance team and boosted stakeholder confidence, differentiating the company competitively.

Pilot Phase & Maintenance Disclaimer

It is important to note that the solution underwent a defined pilot phase where it operated under controlled conditions with sample data. During this phase, minor bugs, edge cases, and workflow optimizations were addressed. This stage ensured reliability before full production deployment.

Following the pilot, RestFlow continues to provide managed hosting, workflow monitoring, routine updates, and compliance audits as part of our Automation-as-a-Service offering. This partnership ensures the automation solution remains stable, secure, and aligned with evolving regulatory requirements over time.

FAQ

Conclusion

By building traceable, monitored workflows aligned with DORA for compliance, the Athens-based compliance company successfully transformed a previously manual and error-prone process into a scalable, reliable, and audit-ready automation. Leveraging RestFlow’s Automation-as-a-Service, the client integrated critical tools like Gmail, Google Sheets, Slack, and PostgreSQL through n8n workflows, ensuring continuous oversight of operational resilience, ICT risk, third-party oversight, testing, and incident reporting.

The automation strategy not only saved significant operational time and reduced errors but also enhanced SLA adherence and empowered real-time decision-making. With a clear pilot phase ensuring initial stability, RestFlow continues to support long-term maintenance and monitoring.

If you’re looking to automate complex compliance requirements efficiently, explore how practical workflow automation can transform your operations.

Explore the power of automation for compliance today!