What is the InstantDrive Expiry Radar?

Last updated: 5 November 2026

What does the Expiry Radar do?

The Expiry Radar is the sidebar screen named Expiry Radar & Compliance in the InstantDrive app. It reads the expiry date stored on each document in your vault and builds one list sorted by the date that ends soonest. Each row shows the entity, the identifier, the authority the document belongs to, the days remaining, a status and an estimated penalty if the date has passed.

It exists because UAE companies hold many documents that expire on different calendars: the trade licence, the Emirates ID and visa of every employee, the Ejari tenancy contract, bank documents and tax registrations. Finding the next date that matters across hundreds of files is slow when each file is opened one by one. The radar puts the dates in one place and sorts them.

The radar reads data you already have in the vault. It does not contact any government system, so it can only be as accurate as the dates stored on your documents.

Which dates does the Expiry Radar track?

It tracks one field: the expiry date saved on a document in the vault. A document appears in the radar only when two things are true. It has an expiry date, and it has not been deleted. A document with no expiry date never appears, and a deleted document drops out immediately because deletion in InstantDrive is a soft delete that hides the item.

Issue dates, invoice due dates, payment dates and contract start dates are not tracked. If a document type has no real expiry, such as a paid invoice, it normally has no expiry date and stays out of the list.

How do expiry dates get into the Expiry Radar?

There are two routes, and the first one needs no typing. When you upload a file, the reading engine extracts fields from it. A deterministic pattern engine runs first and reads dates from the text. If the text recognition confidence is below 90 percent, or no text could be read from a scan, a vision fallback runs. That fallback sends the image to Google Gemini. The extracted expiry date is stored on the document and the file name carries it as Exp followed by the date in year, month, day order.

The second route is correction. Open the document in the vault, edit the details panel and save a new expiry date. You can also change the document category there, which matters because the category decides the authority. The file name is not regenerated by this edit, so an old Exp date can remain in the name while the stored date is the new one. The radar uses the stored date.

Both routes work on the document itself, so the stored date stays tied to a file you can open. Dates are not taken from a spreadsheet. For a document the engine could not read, the correction route is the way to add the date.

How are documents grouped under the six authorities?

The radar assigns each document to one of six authority codes by looking for words in the document category. The first matching rule wins, in the order shown in the table. A category that matches none of the rules is placed under DED, so an unusual category can appear under the wrong authority until you correct it.

The mapping works on words in an internal category name, not on a legal test. A driving licence, for example, contains the word licence and would be placed under DED. Use the category field to correct such cases.

What is the status ladder?

Each row gets a status from the number of days between today and the expiry date. The ladder has five steps, and the summary strip at the top counts how many documents sit on each one. You can filter the list by status, by authority or by a search term that matches the file name, entity, identifier or authority name.

The thresholds are fixed in the code. You cannot change them per company or per document type.

How is the estimated penalty calculated?

When a document is past its expiry date the radar shows an estimated penalty in AED. These figures are estimates produced from fixed rates written into the InstantDrive code. They are not official fines, they are not read from any authority, and the rates may be out of date or may not apply to your case. Ask the issuing authority what a lapse actually costs.

The estimate uses a different formula per authority. Before the date passes the estimate is zero.

The summary strip adds up the estimates of all expired documents. Treat that total as a rough sense of exposure, never as an amount to pay or to report.

What does the compliance sweep do?

The Run Compliance Sweep button on the radar screen creates to-do tasks. It runs only when a person clicks it. It looks at every tracked document, ignoring the filters currently applied, and acts on the ones that are expired, critical or urgent, meaning 15 days or fewer remain or the date has passed. Documents in the approaching step get no task.

For each such document the sweep checks whether an open task already points to it. If one exists, nothing new is created. If not, it adds a task in the compliance bucket for the legal team. The task title names the authority, the entity and the identifier, the due date is the document expiry date, the priority is urgent for expired and critical items and high for urgent items, and the estimated penalty is stored on the task. The tasks then appear in Company Tasks like any other task.

If someone marks a task done while the document is still inside the window, the next sweep creates a fresh task. The sweep also does not remove or close tasks when you renew the document, so close them yourself.

Does the Expiry Radar send email reminders?

No. InstantDrive does not send scheduled reminder emails for expiring documents, and the radar does not email anyone when a date gets close. The sweep creates to-do tasks only, and only when a user starts it. Nothing runs by itself overnight on your behalf.

The radar screen also contains a control for emailing a PRO or partner about a renewal. Do not rely on it as a delivery. It records a log entry in the app and does not transmit a message. If you need a renewal request to reach a PRO, send it yourself or use the 1-Prompt Edge Dispatcher, which sends an email only when outbound email is configured.

What does a worked example look like?

A fictional company, Marina Bright Trading LLC, has uploaded five documents. The table shows what the radar would list on one day, with the estimates from the formulas above.

The finance manager clicks Run Compliance Sweep. Three tasks appear in Company Tasks: the trade licence and the expired Emirates ID with urgent priority, and the Ejari contract with high priority. The labour contract gets no task because 24 days is in the approaching step. She renews the Emirates ID, edits its expiry date in the vault and closes the task by hand. The row then leaves the expired list on the next view.

What review routine should you run yourself?

Because nothing is sent automatically, the radar works when somebody looks at it. A short routine keeps it useful. The owner of the routine can be the finance manager, the office manager or the PRO coordinator.

What are the limits of the Expiry Radar?

The radar depends on stored dates. A scan that was read wrongly, or a document uploaded without a visible expiry date, gives a wrong row or no row. Read the date on important documents once, at upload time.

The status ladder, the authority rules and the penalty rates are fixed. They are not configurable per company, and the penalty rates are not kept in sync with official announcements. The radar also does not know whether a document was renewed elsewhere unless you upload the new version.

It does not verify a licence, visa or Emirates ID with ICP, DED, MOHRE, the FTA or any other authority, it does not renew anything, and it does not pay a fee. It is not legal advice. For deadlines, fees and penalties, check the issuing authority.

What should you do next?

Upload your current trade licence, Emirates IDs, visas and tenancy contract, then open the radar and compare each date with the original document. Correct any wrong date, run the sweep once to see how tasks are created, and set a weekly slot in your own calendar for the review. The 30-day free trial on all plans lets you try this with your real documents.