Lot Recall Traceback: Each Shipment Traced and Notified, From First Notice to Close

Thirty shipments, two notice batches and replies that arrive out of order

A lot recall turns a production record into a list of customers. Every shipment that carried an affected lot needs a disposition: notify, already acknowledged, excluded because its lot falls outside the recall window, or held while someone checks a detail. Each one also needs a count of units still in the field, and the notices have to go out in batches the customer service team can actually work.

The facts are spread out. Shipments sit in an Airtable base, the customer directory and account class live in Salesforce, acknowledgments land in the quality mailbox in Outlook, and customer service runs its threads from Gmail. The coordinator's draft notification log is a spreadsheet in Google Drive, assembled by hand from all four, and every error in it turns into a wrong call to a customer.

Who works in the room

Each recall gets its own room. Nova leads the traceback and is the default agent, so a shipping compliance confirmation posted without a name goes to Nova. Fin is the only agent holding the customer service Gmail connection, so anything that needs a customer draft routes to Fin. When a re-run changes who needs a notice, Nova mentions Fin in the thread with the shipment ids and the batch, and Fin takes it from there.

From batch disposition to class close-out

The traceback policy and the batch rules live in the recall folder. Every stage stops at a person before anything is written or sent.

Answers, a corrected window and the distributor's list

Responses arrive one at a time. A grocery chain confirms it pulled the product and reports how many units it is holding for return. Shipping compliance writes in Slack that two records that looked like a duplicate are separate truckloads. Nova re-runs each named shipment under the full policy, writes the new units outstanding, and adds or clears the notice batch and deadline to match. A shipment that no longer needs a notice should not keep a deadline that someone will chase next week.

A scope amendment reaches further. When quality corrects the lot window, every shipment excluded as out of range goes back through the policy, including the ones no one has asked about. Distributors add a second layer: their recipient lists become downstream notice rows in Airtable, with the count recorded on the source shipment, and anything still on hold carries into the next cycle with a note saying why. For a long distributor list, Fin can split the reading across parallel helpers and bring back one set of rows for the coordinator to review.

What the checks catch

• A line in the draft log that belongs to a different recall, or the same shipment listed twice
• A shipment due a notice that is missing from the draft log altogether
• A notice batch and deadline left on a shipment that no longer needs a notice
• Exactly one reply on each acknowledging customer's thread, naming the shipment and stating that it is acknowledged
• Every out-of-range shipment re-checked after the window changes, not only the ones the amendment mentions

What stays with people

• Approving every disposition, batch and deadline before Airtable changes
• Sending each customer notice and reply, which Fin prepares as a Gmail draft
• Reading a scope amendment where the lot range or dates leave room for doubt
• Signing the close-out note for each customer class

Integrations in this workflow

Kylon is not a recall management system and does not stand in for one. It works across the systems the recall team already keeps, and the room is where the coordination between them happens. Nova reads the Salesforce directory through the recall coordinator's own account, checked on every call, and the run history keeps a step-by-step record of each disposition for the recall file.

• Airtable
• Gmail
• Google Drive
• Outlook
• Salesforce
• Slack

• Airtable holds the shipment table, the downstream notice rows and the close-out notes
• Salesforce is the customer directory, with account class, recall contact and distributor status
• Outlook is the quality mailbox where customer acknowledgments are kept on file
• Gmail carries the customer service threads, where Fin's notices and replies wait for a person to send them
• Google Drive keeps the recall folder: policy, batch rules, the draft log, amendments and distributor lists
• Slack is where shipping compliance and the warehouse confirm facts about individual shipments

Where to start

Run your next mock recall in the room before a live one. Connect the Airtable base with your shipment table, give Nova read access to the Salesforce customer directory, and add one line to the room guidelines: no disposition, batch or deadline is written until the recall coordinator approves it, and no customer hears from the room except through a draft a person sends.

“Every shipment has a reason beside it, and customers who already answered stop getting chased.”

Set it up with your agent

Open a new Room, add your agent and paste this prompt. It connects the tools, builds the App with you and asks for your rules one step at a time, and nothing goes out until a person approves it.