Agreement Management

The Agreement Management section enables you to manage all aspects of creating and editing Agreements from a single page. From this page, you can do the following tasks:

• View and manage all your Agreements on the Agreements page.
• Create new Agreements on the Creating an Agreement.
• Add Amendments to the executed Agreements
• Search, view, and manage all your existing requests on the Requests or index page.
• Create new Requests on the Create Request page.
• Bulk Actions can be taken on group of Agreements 

In ICI, the terms Agreement and Contract are used interchangeably and mean the same thing. In this Help, we will use the word Agreement when discussing Agreements, whereas Contracts will be discussed with reference to Contract Types.

While the actual workflow of an Agreement in ICI can be quite complex and involved, it is summarized in these five steps:

1. Create Contract Request: When someone in your organization, such as a department manager wants to engage a vendor for certain services over a length of time, the individual can raise that request with the procurement department that can then work on that Agreement. Depending on the workflow adopted, your organization may:

• Enforce this step so that all contracts are initiated and drafted only by one department, or
• Make this step completely optional, so it can be skipped by someone who is an expert at contracting and its process.

2. Create Agreement: In this step, the primary owner or the creator of the agreement selects the contract type, selects attributes and template, and verifies the details that you entered in the agreement. See Create Agreement Page for complete details.

3. Review Agreement: After the primary owner has created an internal draft of the agreement, it is published. The published draft can be sent for review (optional, if decided by the Primary Owner of the Agreement).

4. Approve Agreement: Once the Agreement is reviewed, it can be sent for approvals to the team of people that are working on this Agreement in various roles.

5. Execute Agreement: Several people can review and approve the Agreement before it is ready to be signed. After all, approvals are obtained, the Agreement is sent to be signed by both parties. With both parties signing (known as internal and external signatories in ICI), the Agreement is said to be executed and is now in force.

Notes:
If an incorrect document was initially uploaded by a signatory, a user with the appropriate privilege can upload the correct document even after the agreement is executed. The uploaded document must be a PDF. The "Executed" state of the Agreement remains unchanged. Only the following roles have this privilege:
   * Primary Owner
   * Secondary Owner
   * Contributor

If changes are required in the Agreement that is in an "Executed" state, the Primary Owner of the Agreement can add an Amendment. Changes may be required due to any of the following business reasons:
   * The payment terms of the Agreement have changed.
   * The Statement of Work (SOW) in the Agreement has changed.
   * The terms and conditions of the Agreement have changed due to the introduction of new regulations.

6. Support Multi-party Agreements: ICI offers full platform support for multi-party Agreements. You can now use a single system for managing all your Agreements and capture multiple other parties and divisions on an Agreement seamlessly. It allows you to search only metadata instead of searching multiple attributes, thus making it user-friendly. There is no limit on the number of parties that can be added. All parties can sign the Agreements either manually or electronically, based on the signing sequence set in ICI. It also supports parallel signatures independent of the status of either party.

Such Agreements include Non-Disclosure Agreements, Sell Agreements or business-specific Agreements. For example, A healthcare business group needs Contract Types for managing their contracts, but the Mergers and Acquisitions department needs their own Contract Types.
 
Key capabilities of Multi-Party:

• Captures multiple values of Attributes and/or Masterdata
• Tags these multiple instances in the Template
• Supports the signature workflow with these multiple instances of customer data
• Supports multiple Rules (say for approval workflow) based on the individual values selected. For example, in an Agreement, if 3 Divisions are selected, the approval process should support approvals from all 3 divisions.
• Supports visibility in such a one-to-many environment; For example, in the multi-division scenario, the Agreement visibility too should be enabled for multiple divisions.

Agreement Details 

Refer Agreements and Agreement Details Page for more details on Agreements.

Upfront Chevron View of Agreement Journey

In ICI, as per the contracting business paradigm, an agreement entity goes through different workflows and stages starting from authoring to execution, and expiration or termination. 

Users can view the current status of an agreement on the "Agreement Index or Details" page, a generic progress view on the "Team" tab, and logged audit details on the "History" tab. To understand the progress of the agreement and find relevant information, the user needs to navigate through multiple tabs. 

A horizontal chevron is displayed, which is a visual depiction of the agreement’s journey that provides a simple, upfront, and consolidated view of the agreement’s lifespan. The chain of compact dots and a square on the top right of the Agreement (or Amendment) details page, just below the title in the title bar, the chevron view prominently communicates an entity’s journey including the previous, current, and possible future states of the agreement. This considerably improves usability for new and existing users as they can now find information easily and with minimum clicks. 

The colors of the chevron are indicative of the stage of the agreement:

• A “Completed” state is represented by a green-colored dot.
• A state in progress is represented by a brown-colored dot.
• Future states, not reached yet, are represented by gray-colored dots.
• The color setting rules are independent of ICI theme color configuration, therefore any theme color changes will not affect the way the chevron colors represent agreement statuses and actions.

 

The chevron displays the following 4 dots corresponding to the various stages of the agreement’s journey:

1. Generate – Agreement (or Amendment) action statuses, as also displayed in the agreement History, up to “Publish”, such as “Draft”, “Modified”, “Cancel”, “Revert”, “Lock-Unlock” etc.

2. Approve – Agreement (or Amendment) action statuses, per Approval stages, such as “Pending” or “Completed” approvals from Deviation Approval, Agreement Approvals, etc. with step numbers.

3. Execute – Agreement (or Amendment) action statuses in the Signature lifecycle, such as “Waiting for Internal Signature” or “External Signature” up to “Executed”.

4. Manage – Agreement (or Amendment) actions reported in History post executed state, such as  Reviewed, Terminated, Expired, Amended, Superseded, Archived etc.

On hovering over the chevron dots, a tooltip text is displayed to represent the current status of the agreement - “Agreement (or Amendment) is <State Name>, click here for more information”, where state name is the current state of the agreement or amendment. For example, for an agreement that is published and approved, it shows “Agreement is Approved, click here for more information”.

Note: 

• Only one tooltip for the actual status is displayed on hovering over any part of the four dots or within that content area.
• The tooltip text is not displayed differently on individual dots of the chevron.
• The chevron view is only applicable to agreement contract type (agreements and amendments). 
• By default, the chevron is disabled; it can be enabled for selected contract types.
• The chevron labels support localization.

Clicking anywhere on the compact chevron view opens up the details and step-by-step history of the agreement lifecycle till that moment in an expanded view.

• The expanded Chevron is displayed as a drawer with the title “Workflow Status”.
• The agreement states are displayed in a combined view across the four stages - Generate, Approve, Execute and Manage.
• The expanded chevron is displayed with a timeline view, presenting the chronological steps/actions taken by a user.
• Actions and related points (for example, “There are no approvers in the team”) that have been taken and completed for a state is indicated in green.
• Action steps and related points that are currently pending within a process, which are already initiated as part of any one of the four stages, are indicated in brown.
• Actions that are in the queue for the future will be indicated in grey.

1. Generate: The following screenshot shows the status of an agreement in draft state:

• Only the five latest actions are displayed in “Workflow Status” for the “Generate” stage until the agreement is published. List of 5 most recent logs of the actions taken by the user who created the agreement – e.g. Agreement Copied, Agreement Created, Agreement Modified, Agreement Team Member Added, and finally agreement Published.    
• Timestamp – e.g. the agreement was copied on 8/28/2020 at 14:05:02.
• User details – e.g. user First Approver and user role Primary Owner. 
• Green check icon for actions completed.

2. Approve: Displays the following details:

• List of queued approvers as per the defined steps in the agreement, users that have approved the agreement, users with pending approval actions and for how long it has been pending with them. The list of approvers is similar to those mentioned in the "Team" tab in the left navigation pane on the "Agreement Details Page. Refer Agreement Details Page for more details on the collapsible left navigation pane.
• A number of approvers required for agreement approval – e.g.1 of 2 required. If no approvers are added, then a message will be displayed that no approvers are added to the team and the agreement is directly approved.
• Approver details – e.g. approver 1 - Deviation Approver, approver 2 – Approver Group. 
• Approvers are queued as per the rules. For example:
• - Step 1: Completed i.e. "Deviation Approver" has approved the content (& the Step 1 color is light green).
  - Step 2: In Progress. The clock icon indicates the stage that is in progress e.g. the user has to take action on the agreement. i.e. Agreement is currently waiting for approval from Approver Group (& the Step 2 color is brown).
• - Step 3: Not Started i.e. in the queue are displayed in grey and the agreement will be sent to her after approval.
• The duration of a pending action is mentioned, which is the time passed since the completion of the previous step when the current step was triggered into pending status. For example, “4 Days and 23 hours” in the screenshot below indicate that 4 Days and 23 hours have gone past since the agreement has been in the “Waiting for Approval" status.
• Hovering over the user names opens a box displaying the user (approver) email and Notes added by the user if any.

3. Execute: Displays the following details:

• Internal/ external signatories that have either signed the agreement or whose signatures are pending.
• A minimum number of external and internal signatures is required at each step.
• Hovering over the user names opens a box displaying the user (approver) email, with whom the agreement currently is, and for how long it has been pending with the user.
• By default, the external signatory details are displayed first. If no signatories are part of the team, then a message will be displayed indicating that and the agreement will directly move to the "Executed" state.

Manage: Displays the following details:

• The 5 most recent logs of the actions taken by the user to manage the agreement post-execution e.g. Agreement Downloaded, Agreement Sent For Review. 
• The icons displayed next to the user name are similar to those in the agreement’s History log.
• User details – e.g. user name Automation user1 and user role Primary Owner. 
• Timestamp – e.g. the agreement was copied on 8/28/2020 at 14:08:09.

 

Online editing of contracts

Contract authoring is a team-based activity consisting of multiple subject matter experts and operations personae, often remote from each other. This release features a real-time, collaborative authoring environment, embedded into the Icertis UI where the contract artifacts are stored in ICI and respect all prevailing entitlements.

It is now possible for:

• Primary owners, secondary owners, and reviewers with edit privileges to initiate an online editing session, enabling collaborative editing, using the existing Microsoft Word Online embedded into Icertis UI. 
• An agreement document, that has been modified using online editing, to be published to ICI without any loss of information and respect all prevailing entitlements.

Note:    

• By default, the online Word Editor is turned off. To enable it, contact the Ops team to set up necessary services for your environment. After the setup, online Word Editor can be enabled through technical configuration for your instance. 
• It can be used only by users with edit privileges (managed through role action mapping) on a document.
• It is recommended for editing agreement with third party paper.
• The online Word Editor is available only for users with valid Office 365 subscriptions. 
• Users must either allow third-party cookies or add *.officeapps.live.com to their browser's allowed cookies list to use Office Online.

The Word online editing is available only for Agreements and Amendments in Draft, Waiting for Approval, Approved & Review Pending states.

To edit an agreement online:

1. Click "Agreements". The Agreement Index page opens.

2. Click the "View Record" icon corresponding to the agreement you want to open. The corresponding "Agreements Details" page opens

 

3. Click "Open in office for the Web". It will redirect the user to the office.live.com web page to validate the Office 365 subscription before allowing online editing.

 

 

Note: The online editing page for Word opens only for the user with a valid Office 365 subscription. For users without Office 365 subscription, a page with the Go back button is displayed, which upon clicking, redirects users to the pre-configured Homepage URL (icertis.com) instead of a previous browser page.

 

If the user is not logged in to Office 365, the Word online editor will navigate the user to the Microsoft Login page.

An Editor will automatically log-in user if the login information is available from cookies and the word is opened in split view along with the Agreement Details page by default. Refer "Agreement Details Page" summary section for more details on the Split View.

 

The status of the agreement is now "Draft – In Editing" with the user name who initiated the editing. For example, "Draft – In Editing (initiated by ICMAdmin)".

 

Note:  All other ICI actions such as Download, Upload Document, Send For Approval, and so on will NOT be available during an online editing session.

 

 

4. Click "Open office in full screen" on the top right to view and edit the agreement in full screen.

 

 

5. Click "Sign in with a work or school account". 

6. Select or add the account. For example, ICMAdmin. The agreement opens in full screen for edit. You can swtich back to Spilt View by clicking "Open office in Split View".

 

After successful log-in, you can switch between full-screen and split view. Refer to "Agreement Details Page" for more details on Split View.

Note: When editing an agreement created using own paper, please note the following

• All the tagged attributes, clauses or any content controls are denoted by two curly brackets.
• URL attribute is not editable in editor in reviewing mode.
• For tagged attributes, tracked changes are not accepted if they are made right before the start tag or after the end tag. 
• Long press the delete key to delete the tags. You must delete start as well as end tags. 
   

Multiple users can simultaneously edit and contribute in an online editing session of an agreement. 

7. Users can copy the document’s online editing session link using the "Copy Editor Link" available on the top right share it with other users. The users with valid Office 365 subscriptions who are authorized to access the agreement can then edit the agreement online. If options are more the link is available under the more-actions three dots menu on the far right before the "Split View" icon.

The document will display clause text and clause comments with their revisions for all static and rule-based clauses which are tagged and assembled in an agreement to help stakeholders collaborate efficiently while working on an agreement.

8. Click "Check-In" on the top right. The drawer "Check In Edits from Office on the web" opens. 

9. Type a note to enter details for future reference though this field is optional. 

10. Click "Check In".

When a user checks in the edits in a shared editing session, the concurrent editing access will be revoked for other active users on the document.
There could be a delay of 30-60 seconds before the online editing changes would be available to check in to ICI. Refer the Last updated on time which illustrates the most recent copy that will be checked in as a new ICI version.

 

For better user experience in online editing, customer content only lives on Office Online servers during an active user session. That is, a user can reasonably expect that when they end an editing session, their content will no longer live anywhere on Office for the Web servers once it has been saved to the host.

The confirmation window showing the document comparison opens.

11. Click "Compare Changes" to view the changes.

12. Click "Yes" on the confirmation drawer after comparing changes. The changes are saved and a new version of an agreement is created in the "Draft" state. For example, Version 3. The "Versions" page is displayed with the version details. You can click "Show Details" to view the details. Refer to the Versions page for more details.

13. Click "Discard Changes" on the top right if you do not want to continue with the changes. The confirmation window opens.

14. Click "Yes". The "Agreements" Details page opens again.

The Discard Changes action will also create a new system generated version of the document in a Draft state to restore the prior version. For example, Version 3.

 

Note: The access to the actions "Discard Changes", Open in Word for the Web, Check In and Copy Editor Link re controlled through role action mapping.

The audit for online editing session events is captured and displayed in the "History" Tab in the left navigation pane on the agreement Details page. Refer to the History page for more details.

 

Note: 

• All existing ICI workflows, validations and configurations work in a same way while editing the agreement and amendment in online Word editor.
• All the functionalities available in the Word desktop version are not supported in the Word online version.
• It is recommended to download and edit offline for earlier versions of MS Word as online editing is supported on Word 2010 or later versions. 
• Word online editing supports only 100MB file size.
• Word online editing does not support protected Word document.
• Only single user can edit the Protected (Mark as final) document.
• Check-in activity will be blocked if a parent clause, mandatory clause or attribute are removed when editing online.
• User can make changes to the document after logging out of ICI.
• Word online does an auto save on document every 30 seconds and a name of a user who edited most recently, is used during the save event. In history logs captured for online session, Word Online may or may not capture all participant user’s names.

Users get the emails and notifications for the online editing session which can be accessed from the "Notifications Dashboard". For example, Agreement Notification- Agreement Online Editor Session Start. The notifications contain the link to access the agreement record.

Refer Notifications Dashboard page for more details.

 

Online Editing for Associated Documents

The online editing in ICI now covers the editing of Associated Documents along with the agreements in shared online sessions for a complete collaboration with various stakeholders encompassing the components of agreements.
The online editing for associated document is available for the MS Excel, PowerPoint and MS Word files (DOCX, XLSX and PPTX file extensions). 

Note: Users cannot upload an associated document when the online editing session of that document is in progress.

Online editing of associated documents

1. In ICI Web, navigate to the agreement for which you want to edit the associated documents online.

2. In the left navigation pane, click on the Associated Documents tab. The agreement associations are displayed.

3. Click on the association you want to edit. For example, Annexure 1. The Association's Details page opens.

4. Click “Open in Office for the Web”. The page reloads and the associated document is displayed. Refer above section for more details

5. Make the necessary changes. While the online editing session is in progress for the associated document, the workflow status is displayed as “Draft – In Editing”.

• The maximum file size supported is: 
  • DOCX: 100 MB
  • XLSX: 5 MB
  • PPT: 300 MB 
• Check-in time supported by Microsoft:
  • DOCX: 30 seconds
  • PPT: 60 seconds
  • XLSX: 120 seconds

Contract Lifecycle Management, Artificial Intelligence, and Bulk Upload

For organizations looking to optimize their contract lifecycle management processes and digital transformation, this release includes capabilities to manage the bulk upload of larger volumes of legacy contracts, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven enhancements to improve discovery, identification, and digitization of third-party, legacy and federal contracts.

Using ICI, you have the:

• Ability to create US Federal Acquisition Regulations clause repository and to manage US Federal Contracts using ICI.
• Accelerate contract digitalization and management by quickly converting legacy contracts into live contracts with AI-enhanced contract digitization capabilities which also help in AI-powered clause and attribute discovery. Excel-based bulk upload capability to do so at scale.
• Upload legacy Agreements in bulk supporting a larger volume of agreements and other entities using Excel utility.

 

 

 

 

Related Topics: Searching Agreements and Requests | Setting auto-expiry for an Agreement | Bulk Actions | Admin | Associations | Compliances | Templates | Clauses | Configure | Reports | Localizing ICI |