How RestFlow Automated User Transparency & Reporting for Legal Compliance under Digital Services Act

In today’s stringent regulatory environment, legal teams must navigate complex compliance requirements with agility and precision. For a legal leader in Budapest, the challenge of meeting obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA) was causing operational friction and sleepless nights. 😰 This case study explores how RestFlow helped by automating User Transparency & Reporting processes, enabling smoother platform accountability and compliance management.

We’ll dive into the practical steps RestFlow took to transform manual reporting into an automated, transparent, and audit-ready workflow. If you’re a CTO, automation engineer, or operations specialist looking to streamline DSA compliance and build scalable automation, this detailed account will offer both strategic insights and hands-on workflow examples.

The Problem: Digital Services Act Compliance Challenges for a Budapest Legal Leader

The client is a prominent legal firm based in Budapest, specializing in regulatory advisory and compliance support within the technology sector. The core team involved was the legal compliance department, responsible for managing reporting and transparency obligations mandated by the Digital Services Act (DSA), a regulation focusing on platform accountability, transparency, notice-and-action procedures, and risk assessments.

Before automation, the team handled User Transparency & Reporting almost entirely manually. This included collating data from disparate sources, preparing user-facing disclosures, filing reports to regulators, and handling internal approvals. Key pain points included:

• Approximately 40 hours per month wasted on manual data collection and formatting.
• High potential for human error, inconsistent disclosures, and delayed report submissions.
• Lack of integrated visibility for compliance managers, hindering proactive risk management.
• Operational stress and resource drain, impacting the team’s ability to focus on strategic tasks.

These inefficiencies risked non-compliance fines, reputational harm, and increased operational costs — a critical issue given the stringent timelines and accountability principles of the DSA.

Our Approach: RestFlow’s Compliance-First Automation Strategy

RestFlow commenced with a comprehensive discovery phase, mapping out the client’s entire User Transparency & Reporting process. This included:

• Interviewing compliance officers to understand weekly workflows and data dependencies.
• Documenting manual steps, bottlenecks, and error-prone tasks.
• Analyzing key systems: email (Gmail), spreadsheets (Google Sheets), internal chat (Slack), and document storage (Google Drive).

Given the variety of cloud-based tools, RestFlow recommended n8n as the automation orchestrator for its open-source flexibility, native integrations, and scalability.

The high-level architecture was designed to:

• Automatically trigger data collection on scheduled intervals.
• Aggregate and validate compliance data from multiple sources.
• Generate required transparency reports and disclosures.
• Route outputs for approvals using Slack notifications and Gmail email workflows.
• Log every step for auditability and error handling.

This holistic solution aligned with the DSA’s focus on platform transparency and accountability, emphasizing automation as a compliance enabler rather than a mere efficiency tool.

Solution Architecture & End-to-End Workflow

The solution’s global architecture relied on a scheduled trigger within n8n initiating the workflow at defined intervals (e.g., monthly). The orchestration seamlessly integrated multiple services:

• n8n – orchestration and automation platform.
• Gmail API – sending user-facing disclosures and reminders.
• Google Sheets – central data repository for reporting metrics and logs.
• Slack – approval notifications and escalation alerts.
• Google Drive – storing generated transparency PDF reports.

End-to-End Workflow Description

1. Trigger: Scheduled cron job every 1st of the month triggers the workflow.
2. Data Collection: n8n queries Google Sheets for raw compliance data entries and recent user notifications.
3. Data Validation: Data is checked against predefined rules (e.g., completeness, format integrity). Invalid records generate Slack alerts.
4. Transformation: Data is consolidated into report templates, and transparency disclosures are generated as PDFs.
5. Approval: Notifications are sent via Slack to compliance managers for review and sign-off with action buttons (Approve/Reject).
6. Publication: On approval, disclosure emails are sent to users via Gmail, and reports are uploaded to Google Drive.
7. Logging & Audit: Every action logs details in Google Sheets, enabling audit trails and traceability.

This workflow ensured transparent, timely, and auditable user disclosures in alignment with DSA mandates.

Step-by-Step Node Breakdown 🌟

1. Scheduled Trigger Node

This node is configured using n8n’s Cron node set to trigger monthly on the 1st at 9:00 AM CET. It initiates the entire transparency reporting workflow.

2. Data Fetch from Google Sheets 📊

An n8n Google Sheets node retrieves the latest compliance data rows using the sheet ID and ranges capturing user notification records and platform activity logs. The node is filtered to pull only unprocessed or updated data.

3. Data Validation and Filtering Node 🚦

A Function node runs JavaScript validations:
– Checks that all required fields (user ID, date, action type) are present.
– Verifies that notification dates are within the reporting period.
Records failing validation trigger a Slack message to the compliance team through a Slack node using a message template highlighting issues.

4. Report Generation Node 📝

The collected validated data is transformed into a structured JSON payload representing the report. Using the n8n PDF Generator node (via Google Docs API), transparency disclosures are created as downloadable PDF files. Key fields mapped include summarized risk assessments and notice actions.

5. Approval & Notification via Slack 🔔

A Slack node posts summary messages with interactive buttons for managers to either approve or reject reports. The user response triggers a webhook listening node to capture decisions and branch the workflow accordingly.

6. User Disclosure Emails with Gmail 📧

Following approval, a Gmail node sends personalized emails to affected users containing the transparency disclosures and next steps. Email templates incorporate dynamic fields like user name and incident summary.

7. Report Archival on Google Drive 📁

The PDFs generated are uploaded to a dedicated Google Drive folder to maintain long-term compliance archives accessible to auditors.

8. Audit Logging Node 📋

Each processed record is marked in the Google Sheet with timestamps and status updates. This audit trail safeguards the platform accountability demanded under DSA.

Error Handling, Security & Robustness

The workflow incorporates advanced error handling mechanisms including:

• Retries: Nodes auto-retry on transient API failures with exponential backoff.
• Alerts: Slack notifications immediately inform the compliance team of critical failures.
• Idempotency: Workflow keeps track of processed records via unique IDs to avoid duplicate reports/emails.
• Logging: Complete logs are maintained in Google Sheets for troubleshooting and audit.

Security best practices include managing API keys through n8n’s encrypted credential store, applying least privilege OAuth scopes, and withholding sensitive data from logs. PII data is encrypted at rest and handled per GDPR compliance.

Access control is enforced strictly with multi-level approval steps ensuring only authorized personnel can publish disclosures.

Performance, Scalability & Extensibility

The automated workflow scales by leveraging webhook triggers over polling where real-time triggers are available (e.g., Slack approval callbacks). Queues are implemented with n8n’s execution throttling to process large volumes without API exhaustion.

Modular workflow design supports:

• Easy adaptation to new regulatory reports or different DSA themes like risk assessments.
• Onboarding additional legal teams or clients by cloning workflow modules.
• Integration of other tools such as CRM platforms or document management systems as needed.

The RestFlow managed hosting environment ensures stable performance with automatic workflow versioning, sandbox testing for new changes, and continuous monitoring.

Automation Platform	Cost	Pros	Cons
n8n	Free tier; paid plans from $20/mo	Open-source, flexible, self-hosting option, extensive native integrations	Steeper learning curve for advanced workflows than Zapier
Make (Integromat)	Starts at $9/mo, pay per operation	Visual scenario builder, good API coverage, advanced data parsing	Pricing can escalate with volume; some UI complexity
Zapier	From $19.99/mo	Very user-friendly, vast app ecosystem, fast setup	Less customizable; can get expensive at high volumes

Integration Method	Latency	Resource Usage	Reliability	Use Case
Webhook	Milliseconds to seconds	Efficient – event-driven	High – real-time triggers	Real-time alerts/approvals
Polling	Seconds to minutes based on frequency	Higher due to repeated queries	Medium – dependent on polling interval	Scheduled data collection

Storage Option	Access Speed	Maintenance Effort	Suitability	Security
Google Sheets	Fast for small datasets	Low – web based	Suitable for reporting & logging	Moderate; access controls apply
SQL Database	Very fast for complex queries	Higher maintenance	Better for large-scale, complex data	High; encryption and role-based security

Results & Business Impact

Post-automation, the legal compliance team in Budapest realized significant benefits:

• Time savings: Over 60% reduction in manual reporting hours (from 40 to ~16 hours/month).
• Error minimization: Data validation and automation removed common human mistakes in disclosures.
• Faster response: SLA adherence improved with automated alerts and user disclosure emails sent within compliance deadlines.
• Transparency: Audit logs provided complete traceability for all reporting activities, simplifying regulator audits.
• Operational calm: The team shifted to proactive risk assessments instead of reactive firefighting.

This real-world automation success story exemplifies how compliance-first automation empowers modern legal departments to meet complex regulations like the DSA without operational overload.

For those interested in replicating such success, Explore the Automation Template Marketplace for ready-to-use workflows or Create Your Free RestFlow Account to get started effortlessly.

Pilot Phase & Ongoing Maintenance Disclaimer

It’s important to note that the workflow underwent a comprehensive pilot phase where it was tested in controlled real-world scenarios. During this period, minor bugs and edge cases such as atypical data formats and approval delays were addressed.

After pilot validation, RestFlow assumed full responsibility for managed hosting, continuous monitoring, workflow updates, and compliance audits. This ensures the automation remains resilient, secure, and aligned with evolving DSA requirements over time.

Automation is a journey of continuous improvement—RestFlow stays committed as a long-term compliance-first automation partner.

Conclusion

Automating User Transparency & Reporting under the Digital Services Act is not just a compliance necessity but a strategic enabler of operational efficiency for legal teams. By partnering with RestFlow, the Budapest legal leader successfully transitioned from manual, error-prone processes to a scalable, compliant, and audit-ready automation.

This transformation empowered the compliance department to save time, reduce risks, and focus on higher-value legal activities — all underpinned by the robust architecture and monitoring that RestFlow’s Automation-as-a-Service delivers.

If you want to modernize your compliance processes and operate confidently under evolving regulations, RestFlow provides end-to-end automation solutions including design, implementation, hosting, monitoring, and ongoing maintenance.

We invite you to Explore the Automation Template Marketplace for proven workflows or Create Your Free RestFlow Account to start your compliance automation journey today.