How reminders work

Lapsewise schedules reminders for open deadlines and their eligible recipients. The record brings together the dates, the people due to hear about them and the delivery history.

Which dates receive reminders?

Open obligations include expiry, renewal, notice, application, milestone, report, end and spend-by dates. Issued and start dates provide context rather than triggering the deadline reminder flow. A record can have several open obligations, each with its own schedule.

Completing one deadline does not complete the record's other dates. Renewing a record updates the selected renewal date and retains the previous cycle.

Who receives the email?

• Record owner: the responsible workspace member, included as the normal recipient.
• Additional team members: colleagues selected in Reminder recipients.
• External contacts: people saved under Account > Contacts, assigned to the record and confirmed to receive emails.

Open a record and choose Reminder recipients > Manage reminders to edit the additional recipients. During creation, expand Reminder recipients before saving. For several records, use bulk reminder management.

Entering a vendor, holder or person's name in the record does not make that person a recipient. For someone who does not use Lapsewise, follow External reminder contacts.

Timing and timezones

The default workspace schedule is 60 days, 30 days, 7 days and on the deadline day. Owners/admins change the lead times in Account > Workspace > Reminder schedule. Available choices are 90, 60, 30, 14, 7, 3, 1 and 0 days before a deadline; at least one is required.

Emails are scheduled for 08:00 in each recipient's timezone. Team members set theirs in Account > Preferences. External contacts use the timezone saved on their contact. A scheduled time is not a guaranteed inbox arrival time.

The reminder service processes its queue every five minutes. That is how often it checks for work, not how often a person receives the same reminder.

External contacts become eligible after both assignment and confirmation. Earlier missed reminder offsets are not sent as a backlog. If you add someone shortly before a deadline, inspect the next scheduled send instead of assuming they will receive every earlier reminder.

Notice deadlines

For notice-aware records, the recorded notice period produces an earlier notice deadline from the renewal or end date. That earlier date receives its own reminders so you can act before the notice window closes. See Notice periods.

Check that a reminder is scheduled

Open the record's Reminders section. Check the next email, recipient, relevant deadline and timezone. Delivery history distinguishes queued, sending, provider acceptance, reported delivery, failure and a result needing review.

Provider acceptance is not delivery. Delivery to a mail server is not proof that someone read or acted on the email. See Reminder delivery and troubleshooting.

Handling, pauses and backups

I am handling this acknowledges a particular deadline. It prevents the configured unacknowledged backup escalation but does not stop normal reminders. A reminder pause is separate and leaves the deadline unchanged.

A responsible person or administrator can set a resume date and a backup workspace member. Use Responsibility, pauses and backups when someone is away or a deadline needs explicit acknowledgement.

Other channels

Email is the baseline channel. Pro also supports SMS through your Twilio account and Slack reminders. External contacts receive email; they do not inherit a team member's SMS settings or gain workspace access.

Watch the tutorial

Watch tutorial 3 for a video walkthrough, or browse all five video tutorials.