## TL;DR
Fix this in the policy acknowledgement evidence by doing this first: collect acknowledgements signed inside the current audit period, re-issue the policy to anyone whose last sign-off predates the period, and date-filter the evidence set so older sign-offs cannot slip in. Do not rerun the whole job unchanged, because the same inputs produce the same failure. Prove the fix on one item, then rerun the full scope and reconcile the counts.

```text
policy acknowledgement older than audit period
```

## Use this when
- The operation fails with this exact problem: policy acknowledgement older than audit period.
- The same failure repeats on retry with unchanged inputs.
- An audit, review, or request is blocked until this item completes.

## Not for this skill when
- The message is a platform outage notice or a general sign-in failure. Resolve that first, then return here if this problem remains.
- The operation completes and you only disagree with its output. That is a quality review, not this failure.

## Steps
1. Reproduce the failure with the smallest scope that still shows it in the policy acknowledgement evidence, and copy the full message plus the item, account, or request involved into the run notes. Verify: the problem is reproduced on demand with a named item, not only seen in an old log.
2. Apply the specific fix for this problem: collect acknowledgements signed inside the current audit period, re-issue the policy to anyone whose last sign-off predates the period, and date-filter the evidence set so older sign-offs cannot slip in. Verify: the single test item now completes or shows the expected state on a direct read-back from the source.
3. Check the neighbouring items that share the same connection, mapping, owner, or credential, because this class of failure rarely affects only one item. Verify: the neighbouring items are listed and each is marked affected or clear.
4. Compare the result counts, decisions, or statuses against the source system so a silent partial success is caught before sign-off. Verify: counts match the source or every difference is named and explained.
5. Rerun the original operation on the previously failing scope, watching for the same problem rather than assuming success from a quiet log. Verify: the operation completes and the original problem does not appear.
6. Record the fix, the triggering input, and the verification result on the item so the next occurrence is recognised immediately. Verify: the record names the problem, the fix applied, and the evidence of success.

## Why it happens
The evidence set was rolled forward from the prior audit and still contains last period sign-offs, which prove nothing about the current period the auditor is testing.

## Variant phrasings

### how to fix stale evidence error policy acknowledgement older than audit period fails
The verbatim form searchers paste from the console or ticket. Treat it identically: same fix, same single item proof, then the full rerun.

### How to fix this failure in practice
The how-to phrasing for the same failure. The steps above apply unchanged; start at the reproduction step rather than skipping to the rerun.

### Troubleshooting the symptom-first form
The phrasing used when the console hides the full message. Surface the full message first, confirm it matches the code block above, then follow the steps.

Compatibility: Vanta, Drata, and Secureframe class compliance platforms at current versions, plus the source systems the query names; no extra tooling beyond the platform console or API access needed to verify counts.

## Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_U6uu5cKwPQlQTCNJGu5VxA