Understanding Create Task vs. Create Compliance Requirement
Last updated: July 28, 2026
These two automation actions look interchangeable and aren't. Create Task hands someone a form to fill out. Create Compliance Requirement changes what a placement is measured against.
What it is
There are two separate things in play. A compliance requirement is a line on a placement's requirement list — the statement "this placement needs this form." A task is the actual instance someone opens and fills out. Policies normally produce the requirement lines, and tasks get created to satisfy them.
Create Task creates the instance. Create Compliance Requirement creates the requirement line, and optionally the instance too if you check Also create task immediately.
If you remember nothing else: Create Task gives someone work. Create Compliance Requirement changes the definition of done for the placement.
Why it matters
Placement progress is calculated from the requirement list, not from the set of tasks. For each requirement, Onboarded looks for a task on the same employee for the same form. That has three practical consequences:
Create Taskon a form the placement already requires — the new task fills the existing requirement, and progress moves as the task is completed.Create Taskon a form no policy requires — the task exists and the person can complete it, but the placement's progress doesn't count it either way.Create Compliance Requirement— the requirement list gets longer, so placement progress drops until the new form is done. A placement that was showing as complete can flip back to incomplete.
How it works
Which one to reach for
What you want | Action |
|---|---|
A one-off form for one person, without changing whether the placement counts as complete |
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The form to count toward the placement's completion, but not to go out yet |
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The form to count toward completion and reach the person now |
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What each action needs from the trigger
Create Task needs the employee, plus whichever scope entities the form is scoped to — employer, client, or job. The action panel lists them under Required information once you pick a form. If any of them are missing from the automation's facts, the task isn't created and the run fails.
Create Compliance Requirement needs a placement. On a placement trigger it uses the triggering placement. On a task trigger it finds every placement that shares the triggering task's scope and adds the requirement to each of them — so one run can touch several placements. The action's placement_ids output tells you which ones it hit.
Both actions de-duplicate. If the requirement or the task already exists for that form, the action reuses what's there instead of creating a second copy, and the run log records it as a duplicate.
Requirements added by an automation aren't policy-backed, and compliance re-evaluation removes them. Policies own the requirement list. When compliance is re-evaluated for a placement — which happens when the placement is updated through the API, or when compliance is rerun for it — Onboarded rebuilds that list from the policies that match. A requirement no policy produces is dropped at that point. Tasks that were already created stay; the requirement line doesn't. If a form should permanently count toward completion for a group of placements, express it as a policy. Reach for Create Compliance Requirement when the condition is something policy rules can't describe.
Example
Take an account where a background check result can require a follow-up authorization form. An automation triggers on task.status for the background check form and needs to get that follow-up form in front of the candidate.
If the account's position is "the candidate needs to sign one more thing, but the placement isn't blocked on it," Create Task is the right action. The candidate gets the form. Placement progress and placement status stay where they were, so nobody reading the placement table thinks the candidate regressed.
If the account's position is "this placement isn't cleared to start until the follow-up is signed," Create Compliance Requirement with Also create task immediately is the right action. The requirement list grows by one, progress drops below complete, placement status flips to incompleted, and the placement stops reading as ready — which is the point. Keep the callout above in mind here: because no policy produces this requirement, the next compliance re-evaluation on that placement will drop it.