Compliance & Filings¶
Questions or comments?
Post them as a comment on the tracking issue -- requires a GitHub account with access to this repo.
Novaworks AI | scope/table prefix not stated in source material — see Open Questions
Note
Following information is reverse engineered for [AI-DLC]. Review and remove this note before proceeding.
GitHub Issue Description (verbatim)¶
Issue #448, titled "[Compliance& Filling]":
Summary¶
Epic feature
Major Change History¶
| Version | Date | Author / Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2026-08-11 | Seeded from GitHub issue #448 and Novaworks_PRD_Compliance_Filings_v2.docx — reverse-engineered, not yet reviewed by a PM. |
Business case¶
Reproduced verbatim from the source PRD's §3 (Problem Statement) and §2 (Goals & Non-Goals) — not paraphrased.
Why are we building this?
Compliance reporting is among the highest-stakes obligations an HR function carries. A missed filing or a late submission to a government agency can result in fines, audits, or legal exposure that far outweighs the effort required to file on time. Yet for most HR Operations teams today, compliance tracking is entirely manual: deadlines live in spreadsheets, status is communicated by email, and the data needed to complete each filing must be hunted down across disconnected systems.
Novaworks is an HRIS built natively on ServiceNow, which means the workforce data required for the majority of statutory filings — employment details, compensation, headcount, classification, tax identifiers (UAN, IP Number, EIN), job location — already lives in the platform. The gap today is not data availability; it is the absence of a feature layer that monitors obligations, surfaces deadlines proactively, gathers the required data from platform records, and gives HR practitioners a single workspace to manage their entire compliance calendar.
For organizations operating across the United States, Canada, and India, the complexity compounds significantly. Each country has distinct regulations; in the US alone, federal obligations interact with state requirements that carry independent deadlines, thresholds, and form variants. Without a system to track these across legal entities and jurisdictions, filings fall through the cracks — and HR Ops only discovers the gap when a regulator calls.
An important architectural constraint informs v1 scope: of the full catalog of compliance reports across US, Canada, and India, the platform data currently available is sufficient to fully gather required fields for a limited subset of filings. Many reports require payroll, benefits, talent acquisition, or leave data that Novaworks does not yet have. This is a known and documented gap.
Goals:
- Give compliance owners one dedicated workspace — accessed from a designated entry point in the Novaworks navigation bar — to see every upcoming, due soon, overdue, and filed obligation across all applicable jurisdictions.
- Surface enough metadata on each filing — agency, applicability, required data fields, and official source — that an HR practitioner knows exactly what information is needed to complete the form externally.
- Gather and present the platform data required for each filing from Novaworks workforce records — so the practitioner has the information in one place and does not need to hunt across systems.
- Let global leaders see an aggregated cross-country rollup (US, Canada, India) without hopping between views (Executive / All Countries mode).
- Proactively surface compliance obligation signals via Nova when threshold-triggered events arise — so HR Ops is notified before a deadline becomes overdue.
Non-goals (v1):
- Actual filing submission to agencies — the platform tracks status only; submission occurs outside Novaworks via the relevant agency portal.
- Populating the actual agency form — v1 gathers and presents the required data; the practitioner completes the form externally. Form auto-population is a Phase 2 capability targeted for 2027.
- Document storage or evidence upload — placeholder action only in v1.
- Per-filing assignment of human owners and SLAs — not in v1 scope.
- Custom customer-added filings — the catalog is Novaworks-managed in v1.
- Payroll-dependent filing data (Forms 941, 940, W-2, ACA 1094-C/1095-C) — flagged as Phase 2 pending payroll module availability.
The PRD does not separately break out "value to Novaworks" or a "Novaworks lens" framing distinct from the above — unable to find that content in the PRD.
Goal¶
Reproduced verbatim from the source PRD's §5 opening description.
Compliance & Filings is a dedicated, standalone workspace in the Novaworks platform — accessed from a designated entry point in the Novaworks navigation bar, independent of the Reporting surface. It is not a tab within Reporting. It has its own navigation icon, its own workspace, and its own entry point. HR practitioners go to Reporting to ask workforce questions; they go to Compliance & Filings to manage statutory filing obligations.
The workspace provides a proactive, deadline-driven view of every compliance filing obligation the organization carries across the US, Canada, and India. For each filing, the platform identifies what information is required to complete the form and gathers that data from Novaworks workforce records — presenting it to the practitioner in one place so they can review it, download it, and use it to complete the form in the external agency portal. The platform does not complete or submit the form; that remains the practitioner's responsibility in v1.
Scope¶
Reproduced verbatim from the source PRD's §5 (Report Catalog) and §3 (Data Coverage Constraint).
United States (Federal): IRS Forms 941, 940, W-2/W-3, 1099-NEC; New Hire Reporting; SUTA; EEO-1; VETS-4212; OFCCP AAP; OSHA 300/300A/301 and severe injury/ITA electronic submission; Form 5500; ACA 1094-C/1095-C; COBRA/HIPAA notices; FLSA recordkeeping; FMLA; I-9; and Workers' Compensation FROI.
United States (State — v1 scope: California, Texas, New York): EDD DE 9/DE 9C, SB 1162 pay data reporting, Cal/OSHA, SDI/PFL, CA WARN Act, CFRA (CA); TWC Form C-3, DWC Form-001, TX Payday Law, TX new hire registry (TX); NYS-45, NY PFL, NY Workers' Comp C-2F, NY WARN Act, Wage Theft Prevention Act, NYC Paid Safe & Sick Leave (NY).
Canada (Federal + Provincial + Territorial): T4/T4A slips, ROE, PD7A remittances, T2200, Employment Equity Annual Report, CPP/EI tracking. Provincial coverage across all 10 provinces including Ontario, Quebec, BC, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI, and Newfoundland. Territorial coverage for Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.
India (Central + State): EPF/ECR, ESIC, TDS (Form 16), Professional Tax, Labour Welfare Fund, Gratuity, Minimum Wages, Payment of Bonus, Maternity Benefit, POSH, Factories Act, and 4 Labour Codes tracker items. State-level coverage for Maharashtra, Karnataka, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Gujarat, and West Bengal.
Of the full catalog of compliance reports across US, Canada, and India, the platform data currently available in Novaworks is sufficient to gather required fields for a limited subset of filings. Many reports require payroll, benefits, talent acquisition, or leave data that Novaworks does not yet carry.
Which ServiceNow scoped app / table prefix this Feature Set targets is not stated anywhere in the source material — unable to find that content in the PRD or the GitHub issue.
Sources¶
- GitHub issue #448 and its 7 linked sub-issues (#449, #456, #464, #471, #477, #484, #619).
reference/Novaworks_PRD_Compliance_Filings_v2.docx— PRD v2.0, dated 2026-07-17, status "Draft — Revised per July 1, 2026 PRD Review and July 2026 architectural decisions."
Related PRDs¶
None explicitly named in the source material. The PRD explicitly distinguishes this workspace from Reporting: "It is not a tab within Reporting. It has its own navigation icon, its own workspace, and its own entry point" — worth noting as an adjacent-but-separate surface from the Reporting Feature Set (GitHub #404) rather than a dependency.
Who this is for¶
Reproduced verbatim from the source PRD's §3 persona table.
| Persona / Role | Friction today | Value gained |
|---|---|---|
| HR Operations Specialist / Global Leader | Manually tracks compliance deadlines across spreadsheets and external calendars, often learning of overdue filings only when regulators inquire. No central view of what is due, filed, or past due across US, Canada, and India. Data needed to complete each filing must be gathered from multiple platform sources manually. Global leaders cannot quickly assess compliance exposure without aggregating status from multiple team members. | A dedicated compliance workspace — accessible from its own entry point in the Novaworks navigation bar — surfacing every upcoming, due soon, outstanding, and overdue filing. Platform data needed for each filing is gathered and presented in one place. HR Ops downloads or reviews the data, completes the form in the external agency portal, then marks the filing as complete in Novaworks. Global leaders access the Executive (All Countries) read-only rollup for cross-country compliance health at a glance. |
| System Admin | No configurable framework for mapping legal entities to applicable filing obligations by jurisdiction. Static configurations require developer involvement to update when regulations change. | Configurable jurisdiction-to-entity mapping, annually updatable rate tables (WCB, PT slabs, minimum wage), and regime-change toggles (e.g., India Labour Codes). No developer involvement for routine updates. |
| Payroll Admin, Benefits Admin — Phase 2, out of MVP scope | Payroll-adjacent filings (Forms 941, 940, W-2) and benefits filings (Form 5500, ACA 1094-C/1095-C) depend on payroll and benefits modules not yet in platform scope. | Out of scope for v1. Flagged for Phase 2 roadmap once payroll and benefits modules are available. |
What we are building¶
One Feature folder per linked GitHub sub-issue. #619 duplicates #449's
title almost exactly ("Dashboard & KPI View" vs. "Workspace&KPI View") —
stated as fact per its own spec.md, not resolved here.
| # | Feature | Folder |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Workspace & KPI View (#449) | workspace-kpi-view/spec.md |
| 2 | Filing Catalog & Detail Sheet (#456) | filing-catalog-detail-sheet/spec.md |
| 3 | Jurisdiction & Status Filtering (#464) | jurisdiction-status-filtering/spec.md |
| 4 | Platform Data Pre-population (#471) | platform-data-prepopulation/spec.md |
| 5 | Nova Compliance Alerts (#477) | nova-compliance-alerts/spec.md |
| 6 | System Admin Configuration (#484) | system-admin-configuration/spec.md |
| 7 | Dashboard & KPI View (#619) | dashboard-kpi-view/spec.md |
Data Model (Conceptual)¶
No conceptual entity/relationship diagram is given anywhere in the source material — unable to find that content in the PRD. The PRD does name specific platform tables the workspace reads from, verbatim: "PERSON, WORKER, JOB_ASSIGNMENT, LEGAL_ENTITY, COREHR_AUDIT tables" — but doesn't describe new entities or relationships this Feature Set itself introduces (e.g. a Filing/Filing Catalog/Filing Status record model), so no diagram is drawn here rather than inventing one.
Table-Stakes & Differentiation¶
Unable to find this content in the PRD — no competitor names or table-stakes framing appear anywhere in the source material.
UX & Interaction Design¶
Reproduced verbatim from the source PRD's §6.
Link to Figma: "[URL — required before PRD moves to Approved status | Owner: Claire Partlow / Aaron | Reference: Lovable prototype at https://id-preview--77608569-2035-4c24-bae5-78e1db7073b1.lovable.app/reporting/compliance]"
Compliance & Filings is a desktop-primary experience accessed from a designated entry point in the Novaworks navigation bar — separate from and independent of the Reporting workspace. It is not a tab within Reporting. Practitioners navigate to it directly from the navigation bar when they need to manage compliance obligations. The workspace is optimized for HR Operations specialists who return to it on a regular cadence as part of their compliance management routine.
Two surface modes exist within the workspace: the standard per-country practitioner view (full read access, write actions for status updates) and the Executive (All Countries) read-only rollup (visually differentiated by a purple banner, write actions disabled). The filing detail sheet opens as a flyout on the right side of the workspace when a filing row or calendar chip is clicked.
Five key user flows are documented in the PRD (Compliance Triage —
Overdue Filing; Executive Rollup View; Calendar View — Deadline Planning;
Nova Threshold Alert — Obligation Triggered; System Admin — Jurisdiction
Rate Update) — reproduced per-Feature in each sub-issue's spec.md where
they map to a specific Feature, rather than repeated in full here.
Open Questions¶
| # | Question | Blocks |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The PRD's own Figma link is a placeholder: "[URL — required before PRD moves to Approved status]" — no design artifact exists yet. | UX & Interaction Design accuracy for every Feature under this set. |
| 2 | Neither the GitHub issue nor the PRD states which ServiceNow scoped app / table prefix this Feature Set targets (unlike worker-document-management's x_novaw_edm or core-hr-transaction-bundle's x_novaw_corehcm_*). |
Scope section accuracy; any future schema-changes.md. |
| 3 | #619 ("Dashboard & KPI View") duplicates #449 ("Workspace&KPI View") almost exactly — is one a stray duplicate, or do they cover genuinely distinct scope? |
Whether to merge these two Features or keep both. |
| 4 | This entire concept was seeded from GitHub issue bodies (mostly one-line summaries) and one PRD, with no PM review yet — every section above needs a PM pass before this is treated as ready for Construction. | Everything downstream of this file. |
For internal engineering review only. Not for external distribution.
Novaworks AI | Confidential