How a Dublin Operations Team Achieved Continuous Compliance Under the Digital Services Act with Automated Content Intake & Escalation

Operating under the Digital Services Act (DSA) presents complex compliance challenges for companies, particularly in managing and escalating user-generated content reports efficiently and transparently. 📊 This case study explores how a mid-sized company in Dublin automated its content/report intake and escalation process to meet continuous compliance mandates in their Operations department.

We will walk you through the company’s initial struggles, our automation strategy leveraging RestFlow’s Automation-as-a-Service model, and the detailed workflow design implemented using top automation tools. Whether you’re an operations specialist, startup CTO, or automation engineer, this article offers practical, technically accurate guidance plus real-world metrics and step-by-step insights for automating compliance under the Digital Services Act.

The Problem: Compliance Friction Under the Digital Services Act

The client is a Dublin-based technology company operating in the digital services sector with a strong focus on their Operations department. Under the Digital Services Act (DSA), they need to ensure platform accountability through transparent user report processing, a robust notice-and-action mechanism, and performing comprehensive risk assessments.

Before automation, user reports about content violations were manually collected via emails and spreadsheets. This manual process suffered from:

• Average delays of 48–72 hours to triage and escalate reports, risking SLA breaches.
• High error rates due to manual data entry affecting compliance documentation and risk management.
• Lack of visibility into report processing status, leading to customer dissatisfaction and regulatory scrutiny.
• Operational inefficiencies consuming 60+ hours per month in repetitive tasks from the compliance and customer support teams.

These issues created friction across teams and posed a significant risk of non-compliance with the DSA’s platform accountability and transparency requirements. The need for a continuous, scalable compliance workflow was urgent.

Our Approach: Designing an Automation-First Compliance Strategy

RestFlow was engaged to transform the client’s manual report intake & escalation process into an automated compliance workflow, ensuring continuous adherence to the Digital Services Act.

Our discovery phase involved:

• Mapping the end-to-end report lifecycle from user submission to resolution and documentation.
• Identifying key tools, including Gmail for user report intake, Google Sheets for initial data staging, Slack for notifications, and the company’s CRM for case tracking.
• Analyzing risk points and opportunities for automation to reduce error and latency while improving auditability.

Given the integration requirements and conditional routing logic, we proposed an architecture built on n8n as the core orchestration layer due to its flexibility, open source nature, and native support for the client’s ecosystem. The automation would enable:

• Automatic user report capture from Gmail via webhook triggers.
• Validation and enrichment of report data using Google Sheets and CRM lookups.
• Conditional routing and escalation workflows with Slack alerts and CRM case creation.
• Comprehensive logging for audit readiness and real-time status dashboards.

This automation-first compliance approach aligns with RestFlow’s core message of automating compliance requirements instead of managing them manually, enabling scalable, calm, and transparent operations under the DSA.

The Solution: Architecture & Workflow for Continuous Compliance

Global Architecture Overview
The automation architecture integrates multiple services coordinated by an n8n workflow to handle content/report intake and escalation seamlessly:

• Triggers: Inbound emails received in Gmail containing user reports activate a webhook in n8n.
• Orchestration: n8n processes the data through defined nodes, executing validation, enrichment, routing, and escalation logic.
• External services: Google Sheets for temporary data staging, the CRM API for case record management, Slack for team notifications, and Google Drive for archived documents.
• Outputs: Automated case creation in the CRM, Slack alerts to the right operations teams, and audit logs accessible via Google Sheets dashboards.

End-to-End Workflow Walkthrough

1. Trigger Node: An n8n webhook node listens to incoming Gmail emails filtered by user-report criteria.
2. Data Parsing: Incoming email content and attachments are parsed to extract relevant report details (e.g., reporter info, content type, violation category).
3. Validation: The workflow validates extracted data for completeness and compliance with DSA criteria.
4. Enrichment: Retrieves reporter history and prior reports from the CRM through API calls to better assess risk.
5. Decision Logic: Conditional nodes route reports based on severity (high-risk flagged for immediate escalation).
6. Escalation: High-risk cases trigger Slack notifications to compliance leads and create urgent CRM tickets.
7. Standard Handling: Other reports are queued in Google Sheets with status updates sent via Slack.
8. Logging: All actions are logged with timestamps and operator comments for audit trails.
9. Reporting: Scheduled nodes generate compliance performance reports delivered to management via email.

Step-by-Step Node Breakdown

📩 1. Gmail Webhook Trigger

The workflow begins with n8n’s Webhook node configured to accept POST requests from Gmail’s API using a push notification subscription to a dedicated email inbox.

Key configurations:

• Webhook URL: Public endpoint generated by n8n.
• Filter criteria: Subject line filters for keywords like “Report,” “Content Violation.”
• Input data: Raw email JSON including sender, timestamp, body, and attachments.

📝 2. Report Data Extraction & Validation

A Function node parses the email body and attachments using regex and JSON methods to extract:

• Reporter name, email.
• Content type (post, comment, media).
• Violation category (hate speech, misinformation, spam, illegal content).
• Timestamp and reference IDs.

A Set node then validates that mandatory fields are present; if missing, the workflow sends an automated reply requesting additional info.

🔍 3. CRM Data Enrichment

An HTTP Request node calls the CRM’s API to search for the reporter’s past reports keyed by email.

Logic:

• If previous severe reports exist, flag the current report as high-risk.
• Otherwise, proceed with standard triage.

🚦 4. Conditional Routing & Escalation

A Switch node branches the flow:

• High-risk reports trigger Slack notifications to the Compliance Lead channel with message templates including report details and urgency tags.
• Standard reports update Google Sheets for queue management and notify the general Operations Slack channel.

📊 5. Logging & Reporting

A Google Sheets node appends all report metadata, status changes, timestamps, and operator notes to a centralized audit spreadsheet.

Additionally, a scheduled workflow aggregates weekly compliance metrics emailed to senior management in PDF format.

Error Handling, Robustness & Security

Error Handling & Retries

The workflow includes:

• Retry strategies with exponential backoff on API failures (CRM, Slack, Google Sheets).
• Error catch nodes divert problematic reports to a fallback queue with alerting via Slack.

Logging & Observability

All runs are logged in n8n’s internal history and external logs with error summaries. Slack alerts notify the operations team on repeated failures.

Security & Data Protection

API keys and tokens are stored securely in n8n encrypted credentials with least-privilege scopes.

Personal Identifiable Information (PII) is encrypted at rest within Google Sheets and masked in Slack messages to comply with GDPR and DSA requirements.

Performance, Scaling & Extensibility

Scalability is achieved by n8n workflows using event-driven webhooks rather than inefficient polling.

The workflow supports concurrency settings and batching for bulk report processing during peak volumes.

Its modular design allows onboarding new compliance teams or integrating additional CRMs with minimal changes.

RestFlow’s managed hosting ensures 24/7 uptime, automated backups, and version control across staging and production environments.

Key Comparisons for This Compliance Automation

Orchestration Platform	Cost	Pros	Cons
n8n	Open Source / Paid Cloud Plans	Highly flexible, extensible; easy self-hosting; strong community	Learning curve; some integrations require custom config
Make (Integromat)	Subscription-based	User-friendly UI; rich prebuilt app integrations	Higher cost at scale; less developer-centric
Zapier	Subscription-based	Simple setup; large integration library	Limited conditional logic; less extensible

Integration Method	Latency	Scalability	Reliability
Webhook-Based (Push)	Near real-time	High – event-driven	Very reliable with retries
Polling-Based	Delay from interval (minutes to hours)	Moderate – can cause API rate limits	Susceptible to missed events

Data Storage Option	Cost	Pros	Cons
Google Sheets	Low to free	Easy access; familiar UI; fast prototyping	Limited row capacity; no complex querying
Relational Database (SQL)	Moderate to high	Scalable; powerful querying; data integrity	Requires more setup; developer expertise needed

Explore how these tools fit your compliance workflow by exploring the Automation Template Marketplace.

Results & Business Impact

Following implementation, the client observed dramatic improvements:

• 70% reduction in average report processing time, from 48+ hours to under 14 hours.
• Over 90% decrease in data entry errors in reports logged.
• User report backlog cleared daily, eliminating delays and improving SLA compliance.
• Operations and compliance teams freed to focus on analysis instead of manual triage, saving approximately 60+ hours per month.
• Transparent, audit-ready logs provided immediate evidence of DSA compliance for regulators.

This transformation fostered calmer, more scalable operations under the Digital Services Act and a more accountable platform culture.

Ready to automate your compliance workflows? Create your free RestFlow account to get started today.

Pilot Phase & Ongoing Maintenance Disclaimer

It is important to note that the deployment included a carefully monitored pilot phase running parallel with the legacy process. During this time, real-world data was processed in controlled conditions allowing the identification and mitigation of workflow edge cases and minor bugs.

Post-pilot, RestFlow continues to provide managed hosting, monitoring, workflow updates, and compliance audits as part of its Automation-as-a-Service offering, ensuring long-term stability and adaptability to evolving regulatory and operational needs.

Conclusion: Unlocking Continuous DSA Compliance with Automation-as-a-Service

In this case study, we demonstrated how a Dublin-based operations team successfully transformed their manual content intake and escalation process into a continuous compliance workflow under the Digital Services Act using automation.

By leveraging RestFlow’s automation expertise and a robust n8n workflow integrating Gmail, Google Sheets, Slack, and CRM APIs, the company cut processing times by over 70%, mitigated error risks, and built transparent, auditable operations aligned with DSA themes of platform accountability and notice-and-action.

RestFlow’s Automation-as-a-Service model offers a scalable, secure, and sustainable solution – encompassing design, implementation, hosting, monitoring, and maintenance – to keep your compliance workflows future-proof.

To explore how automation can elevate your compliance and operations, explore the Automation Template Marketplace or create your free RestFlow account today.