How to Build a Contract Renewal Tracker in Gridfox

A useful contract renewal tracker should answer three questions: what needs attention, who owns it and what happens next?

In the first article in this series, we looked at why a calendar reminder cannot carry the whole process. Here we will build a Gridfox setup for a fictional business, Alder Services, that needs to review supplier agreements before their notice deadlines.

Start with two tables, a handful of records and one reminder. You can add detail once the team has worked through a real renewal together.

1. Separate organisations from contracts

Create an Organisations table for the businesses you work with and a Contracts table for their agreements.

In Organisations, add a name, an organisation reference and a relationship type such as Customer or Supplier. Keep the organisation reference unique by an agreed naming rule so similarly named businesses are easy to distinguish.

In Contracts, create a relationship to Organisations. One organisation can have several contracts; each contract in this example belongs to one organisation.

Beacon Maintenance now has one organisation record. Its maintenance agreement links to that record. A second agreement with Beacon can use the same organisation without copying the company details.

2. Add fields that describe the renewal work

Use the following as a starting point. The field names are suggestions for this example.

Use Review due, Gathering information, Awaiting decision, Notice to send and Closed as the initial stages.

Create a record for Beacon Maintenance with a review date of 30 November 2026, a notice deadline of 31 December 2026 and an end date of 31 March 2027. These are fictional dates from a fictional agreement. For your own records, check the actual terms before entering a deadline.

Select a real project user as Renewal owner when testing. User fields support assignment and can supply recipients for workflow emails; a name typed into a text field does not establish that connection.

3. Build the working views

Start with a Grid View showing the contract name, organisation, owner, three key dates, review stage and next action. Sort it by notice deadline so the closest deadlines are easy to find.

Add a Board View grouped by Review stage if the team wants to discuss progress visually. A Calendar View using Review date can help plan when reviews begin.

Each view should help someone do a particular job. Keep the detailed grid even if the board becomes the team’s preferred screen; it is useful for checking dates and spotting incomplete records.

4. Save filters for the exceptions

Open the grid, select Filter, add the relevant conditions, then choose Save As and name the filter. Gridfox’s saved filters can also be used in dashboards and scheduled workflows.

Create an initial set for:

• Open contracts whose review date has arrived.
• Open contracts with a notice deadline approaching.
• Records at Notice to send.
• Open records missing a renewal owner.

For your first test, use explicit date boundaries around a known example record. Check the available date operators in your project before making the filter a rolling window. Verify records on the boundary dates as well as those inside and outside the window.

Exclude Closed records from reminder filters. Keep missing-owner records in a separate management review, because an owner-based email needs a user to send to.

5. Configure one scheduled internal reminder

Start with a daily email covering open contracts whose review date has arrived. In Automate, create a workflow for Contracts and add a Schedule trigger. Set the daily run time, then add Filter Records and choose the saved review filter.

Add a Send Email action. In its recipient settings, choose Users or Group Field and select Renewal owner. For a scheduled workflow, enable Collate Results by Recipient so an owner receives one email covering their matching records.

Use a subject such as “Contract reviews needing your attention”. Include the workflow records in the body and select the contract name, review date, notice deadline, review stage and next action as the useful fields. The email workflow guide explains recipient selection and record tables.

Keep the workflow disabled while configuring it. Saving an enabled workflow makes it active, so check recipients and sample data before switching it on.

Add a separate scheduled workflow for approaching notice deadlines only after the first reminder works. Give that email a distinct purpose, such as asking the operations manager to resolve decisions that remain open.

6. Test the cases the team will actually encounter

Use a small set of fictional records: one review due, one future review, one Closed contract and one contract without an owner.

Check that the filter returns the expected records. With test recipients, confirm that the scheduled email contains the right contracts and that the record links open for the recipient. Move a record to Closed and confirm that it leaves the reminder filter.

An open record can appear again on the next scheduled run. Decide whether that repetition supports the team’s review rhythm, and adjust the schedule or process if it produces noise.

Before inviting the wider team, configure group permissions for contract documents, commercial details and editing rights. Saved filters organise work; permissions control access.

7. Record the outcome and complete the action

When the team reaches a decision, the owner updates the rationale, stage and next action. If notice must be sent, keep the record at Notice to send until the responsible person has completed that step and recorded the evidence.

For a renewed agreement, retain the previous terms and decision evidence before recording the next period. Decide whether your business needs a separate contract-period record so the history remains clear.

This first tracker gives the team a shared working process: linked organisations, visible deadlines, accountable owners and internal reminders. Reporting can then focus on open reviews, approaching notice dates and work awaiting a decision.

Ask Gridfox to walk through your renewal tracker. We can discuss the records, views and reminder rules your team needs before you expand the setup.