Contract Lifecycle Concepts

Each contract has a life cycle to progress through. For example, a contract could start in Draft status, where the contract author drafts the contract. Salesforce CLM generates a contract document. The contract requires internal approvals, so the status changes to In Approval. Then, the contract is negotiated, so the status becomes In Negotiation. When the contract is signed, the status becomes Signed. After the customer signs the contract, there may be a need for additional internal approvals. Finally, Salesforce CLM activates the contract and places in the Active status.

The contract life cycle is managed entirely within CLM. At each stage of the contract life cycle, different users can perform different actions on the contract or its documents. Specific users have permissions to perform specific actions. For example, a salesperson can send a contract for review, but cannot modify the contract once it has been generated.

You can configure CLM to meet the specific life cycle requirements for your contracts. You can define unique life cycles for each specific contract type. Using Vlocity Actions, you define contract states, state transitions, and allowable actions corresponding to each state. Vlocity Actions are action buttons that are linked to Visualforce pages, Omniscripts, Apex classes, and so on.

The contract life cycle also drives document operations, such as who can do what to a contract document and when they can do it.

You can generate Microsoft Word and PDF documents, but the online, HTML-based version within CLM is the single source.

You can send contracts for internal approvals before you send them to the customer during the negotiation stage. You can track the contract process from authoring to negotiation, execution, renewal, and termination. Using the Contract State Model, only the appropriate actions by the appropriate people can occur.

You can use Omniscripts to create guided contract processes for any business situation. Salesforce provides industry reference processes for renewal, termination, and amendment. You can adapt and extend these processes.

The Document Management Visualforce page provides security, preventing users from modifying or deleting documents.