Every request reaches the right person, and every promise is kept on the record
Agreements go wrong in the gaps: a request nobody picked up, an approval waiting on somebody on leave, a monthly report nobody owned, a notice date missed by a week. Intake forms, the Legal queue, approval rules and obligations with evidence close each gap with a name and a date against it.
A form for each kind of agreement
A request asks the intake form for its kind. The account owner or a manager designs each form under Legal queue, Intake forms: up to forty fields, each one text, long text, a number, money, a date, yes or no, a choice, a person, an organization or a document from your library, required or not, with help text.
Six forms ship, for a nondisclosure agreement, a teaming agreement, a subcontract, a consulting agreement, a purchase order and an amendment. The subcontract form asks for the prime contract, the work, the price, the dates and whether the other side will handle controlled unclassified information. The answers are kept on the agreement and fill the template it is drafted from, so nobody types them twice.
- A form can be changed, put back as it shipped, or turned off for a kind
- The value asked on a form, and the counterparty when it is chosen from Relationships, are set on the agreement itself
- Draft it fills a template from the answers and the facts of the agreement
What waits on the legal team, with a clock on it
The Legal queue lists every request and every agreement waiting on the legal team, soonest due first. An agreement waits at one of three stages: the first response to a request, the draft, and the review of their paper when their version is the newest. Each stage has a time target for each kind of agreement, and each item shows the time left, or how far past its target it is.
Routing rules send each one to a person or to a pool, by kind, a band of value, side, counterparty, legal entity or an answer on the intake form. A pool hands work out in turn, or to whoever has the least open work. What no rule routes goes to a default, or to the next manager in turn. When a target passes, the agreement says so, and when you have named somebody to take it, it is escalated to them as a task on their calendar.
- Mine, for your own queue, and Workload, for what each person has
- Take it from a pool, or reassign it
- Up to thirty routing rules and twenty pools
The time targets that ship
| Kind of agreement | First response | The draft | Review of their paper |
|---|---|---|---|
| Most kinds | 24 hours | 5 days | 3 days |
| Nondisclosure agreement | 8 hours | 2 days | 2 days |
| Subcontract | 24 hours | 7 days | 4 days |
| Prime contract, master services agreement | 24 hours | 10 days | 5 days |
The account owner or a manager changes any target, for any kind, under Routing and targets.
Approval rules in stages
Approval rules say who approves what. A rule can turn on the kind of agreement, the side, a band of value, the risk the review found, the legal entity, the counterparty, an answer on the intake form, or a departure from your clause library: any deviation, a required clause missing, a clause changed from yours, or your fallback used. That last one is how a concession reaches the person who must agree to it.
Each rule names its approver: a named person, the account owner, any manager, every manager, everyone in a role, or a pool. Rules sit in up to twelve stages, asked one after another. Inside a stage the approvers are asked together, and the stage needs every one of them, or any one, as you choose. With no rule kept, one stage asks the next manager in turn, or the account owner when there is none. Each step asked is a task on the calendar of the approver.
- A rejection says why, and the agreement goes back to drafting.
- A new version withdraws the round, so the version approved is the version signed.
- The account owner may decide any step, and the history says in whose place.
- Up to thirty rules.
A step asked of everyone in a role is decided by the first of them to decide, and the others are not asked any more. On the agreement, the Approval tab draws the round as a chain, each step with when it was asked and how long it took. An agreement type your company adds can carry a default approval rule and the obligations each new one starts with when it is signed.
Time away, reminders and escalation
Somebody going on leave names a delegate and the dates under Approval rules, Time away, and the steps waiting on them are asked of the delegate, who is named with them. The owner or a manager can set it for anybody. An approver who has not decided in two days is reminded, and after five days the step is escalated to the person you name, or to the account owner, who may then decide it. Both numbers are yours to change under Reminders and escalation.
Every date an obligation falls due, met with evidence
What each side has to deliver, pay, report, give notice of, insure, keep confidential, keep records of or comply with is read from the text by rule: each sentence in which a party shall, will or must do something. You keep the ones that are real. Each has a kind, an owner, a first date and how often it recurs: once, weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly.
Each date it falls due is an occurrence of its own, made 120 days ahead and never past the end of the agreement. An obligation is met when its evidence is accepted, or when its owner says so. Evidence is a document from your library, a note, or both, up to twenty pieces for one occurrence. The reviewer named on the obligation accepts it or sends it back with the reason; with no reviewer named the owner of the agreement does, and a manager always may. The person who submitted it does not accept it, unless they are the account owner. An occurrence still open the day after it falls due is missed, and the owner of the agreement is given a task that says so.
- Met on time, met late, missed and waived, counted under Performance by agreement, counterparty and kind.
- Each occurrence is a task on the calendar, and for what the other side owes the task says to check they met it.
- Waiving one takes a note, from the owner of the agreement or a manager.
What the other side owes you
Entitlements are the rights an agreement gives the company: a price cap or escalation limit, a discount, a rebate, a warranty, a service level and its credits, an audit right, a license and its scope, most favored terms, a termination right, or another right. They are read from the newest version by rule, from the sentences that give the company each one, with the dates and the value the words state, for you to confirm.
Each is kept with the day it runs out and the value at stake, and the day is on the calendar. For a right to end the agreement, the calendar shows the last day to give notice. What they owe us lists every right across the account, and shows those that run out within 90 days.
- In force, claimed, run out or given up, each kept.
- Read from the words the agreement uses for each side.
- Added by hand when the text says it another way.
Renewals and notice dates
An agreement past its end expires, or renews by itself for its renewal period when it says so, and its history says which. For one that renews by itself, the last day to give notice is a task on the calendar for the owner of the agreement, so letting it renew is a decision rather than an accident. For one that does not, the task falls on its notice date, or thirty days before it ends. Each new term asks again.
The Overview lists what ends within ninety days and what renews by itself with its notice date inside sixty. In the Agreements view, Ask for a renewal review gives each owner of a selection a task to renew it, renegotiate it or let it end.
Where it stops
Intake, the Legal queue, approvals and obligations come with Agreements on every paid plan. They are read and routed by rule. A time target is a clock the company sets for itself, not a promise to the other side. Obligations, rights and key terms read from the text are for a person to confirm, and the words of the agreement decide.
Related
- Agreements NewThe whole lifecycle, from the request to renewal or the end.
- Agreement playbooks NewYour positions on every clause, and the review against them.
- Agreement repository NewEvery agreement by entity, with analytics on where they wait.
- E-signature NewThe approved version, sent for signature.
- Roles and access NewThe roles an approval rule can name.
- Pipeline and calendarWhere every approval, obligation and notice date lands as a task.
- The platform NewWhere this sits among the eight parts of the product.
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