Revision as of 08:33, 25 January 2021

ICI Release Notes - Release 7.15

Overview of Release 7.15

The 7.15 Release introduces significant enhancements to the Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) platform. It strives to enhance user experience, intelligence, analytics, intuitiveness and usability by continually improving ICI functionalities and the user interface.

The key enhancements of this release include:

• Enhancements to the ICI Application
  • User Experience
    • To ensure that the agreement document is generated with the correct clauses and metadata we now have the ability to preview an agreement from the pre-draft stage to the Approved stage, enabling a comprehensive review before publishing the contract. 
    • Improved usability for the global user base and their individual UI language preferences via expanded localization coverage now includes support for “Reason Codes”.
    • Friction-free collaboration enabled via the Collaboration Portal’s external user interface that features the ability to search contract requests, agreements, associations and masterdata records on the index pages. 
    • Significantly improved accuracy and velocity of the document review process now featuring display order for clauses in the ICI web and Icertis Experience for Word that match the order in which the clauses are configured in the respective template and generated agreement.    
    • Improved usability now featuring the configurability of the attribute multi-selection interface when creating an agreement as either radio buttons or checkboxes per contract type to tailor the agreement creation experience. 
    • Amendments to an agreement are now viewable in a grid-view in addition to the current tile view. This provides more information and enables standard grid view functionalities such as search, filter, and export. 
    • Improved usability where the sequence of values displayed in a masterdata lookup dropdown can now be configured to have the most frequently accessed values at the top. 
• • Workflow Enhancements
    • Improved usability including the ability to create instances of associations as part of the agreement creation wizard itself.
    • To continue bringing Extension Attributes capabilities at par with regular attributes, these are now quickly viewable for easy reference in the agreement entity’s “Agreement Clauses” tab.
      Agreements can be Approved or Rejected from within an agreement notification email itself making it faster to take actions on an agreement, reducing turnaround time for approval cycles. 
    • Improved system availability during Publish operations where only the contract types being published are not available during this system operation.
    • Expanded contract request experience now including contract terminations.
    • To save time when re-instantiating a terminated agreement, due to reasons such as reviving a business relationship, you can now do so by simply adding amendments to the terminated agreement rather than by having to create a new agreement from scratch.
    • Bulk actions support now extended to Terminating agreements to support situations like regulatory changes, or business partner insolvency.  
    • Improved first-run experience via simplified administration of default user preferences set at user creation or update based on location or department.
    • Simplified review of signature status labels of “External”, “Internal,” and “Fully Signed” are available in agreement versions.
    • Enhanced flexibility when executing a large volume of contracts by not requiring uploading documents to change agreement status from “Waiting For Signature” to “Executed – Document Upload Pending”.
    • Enabling sharing of Associated Documents via email notifications that are triggered for an agreement.
    • For organizational changes, or employee turnover we now provide a data management interface that enables replacing users with multiple users on supported entities.
    • Support for granularly defining which agreement attributes for a given contract type should be cascaded to the agreement’s amendments via the “Is Inherit On Amendments” flag at the agreement contract type and template variable level.
    • In addition to the currently available functionality of all attributes to be superseded capability, we now offer the ability to selectively supersede an attribute. 
    • Conditional attributes comparison operators now have expanded capability to support multiple complex conditions to dynamically display attributes based on a range of business scenarios.
    • Simplifying navigation by providing the capability of showing or hiding the “No Team Available” message during workflows when a team is not needed.
    • Expanded support for special characters in the Attribute display name for contract requests, agreements, associations and masterdata.
    • Selectively download amendments with the corresponding parent and child associations in a zip package respecting sub-folders. 
    • Larger file size support when uploading (4GB) and downloading (6GB) larger files for masterdata and associations. 
    • Simplified smart filter creation using string operators such as “Contains”, “Starts With”, “Does Not Contain” for the “Business Status” search facet.
    • Expanded automation support for bulk clauses and template upload reducing the dependency on manual approvals and delays in onboarding clauses and templates.
    • Enhanced configurable labels for peer associations that define the contractual relationship. (such as, “Related To”, “Linked To”, “Addendum Of”, “Addendum To”, “Parent To”, “Child To”, and so on.).
       
• Mobile App Updates
  • Enhancing  the “Refresh” functionality for “Tasks” and “Commitment” tabs, to improve usability and the user experience for mobile app users.

• Enhancements to ICI API 2.0
  • Providing support for script and integrated attributes as cascaded attributes for lookup fields when configured at the contract type level. This is applicable for retrieval, creation, and updating of the instances of contract requests, agreements, associations, and amendments.
  • Adding the identifier “TrackingId” which can be passed by subsequent API calls for logging and troubleshooting errors.
  • Adding support for troubleshooting API issues with failure notifications.  

• Enhancements to ICI Add-ins
  • Icertis Experience for Word
    • Improving the filtering and searching capability with support for searching text inside clauses or templates to allow more powerful search especially when searching across large libraries. 
    • Improving labeling of internal, external, and fully signed copies of agreements for easy identification of an agreement version.
    • Defining and updating clause groups as per business requirements for easy categorization and management. 

• Enhancements to Artificial Intelligence Applications
  • Enhancing the AI-powered legal playbook to provide more options to open the “Details” page on a larger window and add deviations as well. All the playbook positions for a contract type now have the option to search and filter. Administrators can create a new playbook record or update the existing one from within Icertis Experience for Word itself.
  • Improving the clause delineation logic so that users can rearrange the clause boundaries identified by AI. They can merge or split discovered clauses or selected text in a clause, and create a sub-clause within the discovered clause.
  • Extending clause hierarchy discovery support to text PDF as well as .docx documents. 
  • Improving library clause recommendations for discovered clause based on learnings from user’s action in previous discoveries. 
  • Providing support for additional languages including “French”, “Dutch”, “Norwegian” and “Swedish” in AI apps.
  • Allowing users to manually trigger attribute discovery on the agreement “Attributes” page itself. Thus, the discovered values will be auto-filled in empty attributes, instead of having to enter them manually making the discovery process redundant. This provides more flexibility to use AI on demand.  
  • Enhancing and optimizing the performance of ML service to simplify deployment and run the workload on-demand, with zero or less management of infrastructure.
     

• Enhancements to Reports
  • Introducing the “Tagged Attributes Report” enabling administrators to understand the complete profile of an attribute and its utilization across clauses and templates. This will help the Legal/admin users to assess the impact of configuration changes to the clauses and templates. 
  • Introducing the “Notifications History Report” for an entity, enabling users to track what notifications were sent to which recipient and when. This provides better visibility and compliance for the users.
  • Providing the ability to filter the “Agreement Deviation Report” and “Agreements Pending Execution Report” by “Agreement Status”.
  • Enhancing the “Clause Summary Report” to display information on Extended Clause Attributes as well.
  • Adding an “Organization Unit” filter in the “Cycle Time Report” to enable deeper analysis.  
  • Adding a new column in PowerBI for “Agreement Code” which navigates the user to the agreement in ICI.
  • Multiple localization enhancements within reports.

• Improving the Icertis Experience
  • Signature Workflow
    • Improving the electronic signature process when using DocuSign to provide a unified flexible signature workflow. This hybrid (manual and/or electronic) signature process enables users to add and modify signatories, preview the DocuSign console, and tag signatories in the console. Support has also been provided for Advanced Electronic Signature (AES) and Qualified Electronic Signature (QES).
    • Enabling ICI platform to support more than one E-signature vendors at the same time, to execute agreements and amendments, thus improving flexibility for users.
    • Supporting parallel signatures in DocuSign to reduce the overall turnaround time for the complete signature process. 
       
  • Icertis Experience for Salesforce
    • Providing the ability to send success and failure alerts for improved monitoring of messages.
    • Triggering document assembly for automatic data sync and displaying completion notification.
    • Supporting OAuth in Salesforce adapter for a more secure authentication and authorization process.
       
  • Icertis Experience for MS CRM
    • Providing server-to-server OAuth support, so that the adapter and the task service will use ‘client Id’ and ‘secret key’ from AKV, invoking the MS CRM APIs.

• Enhancements to Platform Tools
  • Enhancing ICI to allow Administrators to promote additional configurable entities from pre-production to target environments. These include organizations and organization groups, users and user groups, security groups, role action mapping, currencies, reasons, attribute group, SLA matrix, notification category, default search columns, cascade team, application settings, global and admin saved searches

• Additions to Icertis Software Development Kit for Partner Enablement
  • With this release, the following SDK documentation has been upgraded for this release – ICI Coding Guidelines, ICI Customization and Use Cases, Working with ICI Tasks, Working with ICI Hooks, ICI Developer Library, Local Environment Setup using ICI Binaries and Self-Serve Tools.

These release notes provide an overview of the enhancements to ICI, the mobile app, the ICI experience for integrations, and so on.

ICI Application Enhancements

514613 – Introducing the ability to preview agreements before publishing

Previously, contract owners had to create the first version of an agreement to get a comprehensive view of the agreement.

With this release, a preview functionality is being introduced, so that the primary owner or contract creator can review whether the selected template is appropriate, the rule-based clauses have been correctly added to the agreement, among other factors, and make changes to the agreement before the version is created. The preview document would also include tagged associated documents, coming through inline or inheritance associations.

A preview section is available on the “Verify” stage of agreement/amendment creation, before publishing or updating the document. The PDF preview is for indicative purposes only and is not an agreement version. The preview is available till the Approved state of the agreement/amendment.

Note: This functionality is configurable. It is not available by default and can be enabled or disabled for chosen contract types.

575640 – Creating associations on the create or edit wizard of agreement

Previously in ICI, contract authors had to create associations for agreements after the agreement is already created. However, in practical terms associations such as annexures, supporting documents, SLAs, product specifications, rate tables, and so on, are all an inherent part of agreement information that is critical to the business, and some associations are required to be created along with the agreement.

Hence, the ability to create association instances as part of agreement creation or update wizard is being introduced in this release. A separate page is displayed, when creating or updating the agreement or amendment, for the user to create, view, or delete inline associations. The user also has an option to select the columns and their order in the association grid. 

This new page also supports page navigation. Support is also provided to copy attribute rules, association events, and agreement assembly, in case associations are tagged in the agreement template.

 
549900 – Supporting localized reason code values as per logged in user language

Adapting existing products to new markets through translation and localization is the key to global growth. The localized versions of the product improve the overall user experience and help to better connect with new and potential global customers.

ICI now extends its localization support to reason code values. Administrators can enter the translated values in the local language, for each reason code, using the “Translations Editor” tool.

Users can see localized reason codes as per their preferred language settings. 

The reason code will be displayed in English if there are no local values available in the ICI system for that specific reason code.

614944 – Initiating termination for parent agreement from contract request

In ICI, users create and execute a termination agreement on the main agreement instance to terminate an agreement. ICI has now extended this capability to initiate the termination from contract requests too. 

Users can now enable the termination process at the contract type level using the seeded attribute "Request for Termination", select the parent contract request, and create the termination contract on a contract request. The termination instance for the contract request will have all the common attribute values inherited if the inheritance is enabled. 

The termination record will be displayed as a peer association under the “Association” tab for the contract request. The access privileges for the contract requests termination process is controlled through role action mapping.

506398 – Enabling search for external users with login privileges

ICI’s collaboration portal allows external users with login privileges to access the platform and perform assigned tasks within ICI itself. 

In our continuous effort to improve usability, a search option has been introduced on contract requests, agreements, associations, and masterdata index pages, so that external users can easily search records. The attributes displayed as columns of the search grid are included as facets in the filter options to perform a more refined search.

514605 – Supporting extended clause attributes in agreements

In ICI, users can capture additional details for a clause in extension attributes. With this release, users can view these clause extension attributes on the agreement entity for easy reference while working with agreements. 

Users can now: 

• Select and save extension attributes to display in the grid view, via the “Default Search” column functionality.
• View additional clause attributes on the “Agreement Clause” and “Clause Approver” tabs.
• View the hyperlink “Show Clause Information”, which displays all clause extension attributes along with clause attributes, in the same window.
   

514615 – Streamlining the approval process over emails

The approval process has now been streamlined by allowing approvers to directly approve or reject an agreement from within the email itself, through a hyperlink to the webpage, instead of logging in to the system to do so. External users, who do not have access to ICI can now review or approve the documents from the notification email, instead of sending offline copies to do so and then uploading them to ICI. This reduces the overall turnaround time and increases productivity. 

The internal users are authenticated through the SSO/IDP before opening the page where the actions are to be taken. The external users are authenticated by sending them a code in the email, which has limited validity. 

With this release:

• Administrators can add tag an Approve/Reject link in the notification template.
• Approvers/reviewers can download the agreement, modify it and upload it back to ICI.
• Approvers can approve/reject the agreement or amendment from the email, only if the task approval or review is assigned to them. Based on the access, the user can approve or reject the agreement by entering notes or reasons for rejection respectively.
   

514643 – Ordering of clauses as tagged in an agreement

To improve the user experience, clauses are now displayed in the same order in the agreement document as they are tagged inside the agreement, on the “Agreement Clauses” tab, in ICI Web and Icertis Experience for Word.

514643 – Ability to define additional clause group under clause entity

Previously, ICI supported 3 clause groups – “Termination”, “Legal” and “None”.

With this release, this capability has been further enhanced so that the configurator can configure various clause group names in ICI. These clause groups can be categorized or grouped as per business requirements for better identification and negotiations during the contract workflow.

Administrators can now:

• Define and update clause groups.
• Edit, delete, activate or deactivate clause group entities.
• View additionally added clause group values in the clause entity when creating or editing a clause.
• Search agreement records or clauses on the index page on clause group attributes with added values.
   

514621 – Reviving terminated agreements

Users may terminate an agreement with the other party for various business reasons. To improve usability, ICI now provides the capability to add and execute amendments on a terminated agreement. This considerably saves time for users who may want to re-instantiate their existing relationship with the other party, as they no longer need to create an entirely new agreement and go through several workflows such as clause deviations clearance, template process, and so on.

Adding and executing an amendment on a terminated agreement will move the agreement back to the “Executed” or “Expired” state, based on its expiry date, thus reviving the terminated agreement. The system sets an identifier attribute "Is Termination Revived" for such revived base agreements, and users can use them in search filters, notification rules while configuring saved searches, and so on.

Note: By default, only primary owners and contract managers can add an amendment to the terminated agreement. The access privileges are controlled through role action mapping. 
 

514625 – Terminating agreements in bulk

Users may need to terminate agreements in bulk in many business scenarios such as regulatory changes, changes in product offerings, and so on. Users can now initiate the termination of agreements in bulk, thereby saving the time to terminate agreements one by one and reducing manual errors.

Bulk termination is carried out using ICI’s existing “Bulk Actions” process. The termination related attributes will be pre-selected, and the Workbook for the bulk action batch will be generated with the executed agreement records from the saved search, as per the selected contract type and termination contract type. 

Users can now: 

• Initiate the termination workflow using “Bulk Actions”, by creating and executing a new batch.  
• Generate and view a status report for agreements terminated in bulk. 
• Create termination agreements for “Draft”, “Published” or “Send for Approval” states, as per the batch Workbook configuration for bulk action.

Note: All prerequisite configurations applicable for the termination workflow should also be set for the bulk termination process.
 

555898 – Defining display sequence on lookup attributes at the contract type level

Previously in ICI, users could not define the display order for lookup attribute values in a drop-down on the UI that references masterdata. Users had to scroll through all the populated values to find the desired values during agreement creation.  

Configurators can now define and maintain the display sequence for selected masterdata records, starting from 1 to n, at the contract type level, using a seeded display sequence attribute. The values will thus be displayed at the top for easier and faster selection in lookup attributes.  

This display sequence setting is supported on the create, edit, and lookup search pages of contract requests, agreements, amendments, associated documents, extended clause entities, and template variables. The display will follow the default alphabetical order if the display sequence is not configured in masterdata. 
 

558605 – Viewing amendments in grid view on the agreement details page

Previously in ICI, users could only view the agreement’s amendments in a “Tile” view, when opened from the left navigation pane on the agreement “Details” page. 

ICI now allows users to view amendments in the “Grid” view, and toggle between grid view or tile view. The grid view is the default view for amendments and supports all existing grid functionalities, such as standard search, filter, column selection, pagination, export to CSV/Excel, and so on.
 

561410 – Enhancing the multi-select drop-down 

The multi-select choice drop-down has been enhanced for better usability, data input, and post-selection data review of contract requests, agreements, amendments, and masterdata entities. 

Users can now: 

• View eight options in a drop-down list (instead of six), without scrolling. 
• View larger values with adjusted drop-down width, according to its size, in the post-selection view. 
• View all selected values at the top of the drop-down.
• Deselect the selected values, individually or all with a single click, without opening the drop-down.
   

620411 – Defining IN operator when applying lookup filters

In ICI, the configurator can filter the lookup masterdata table with “Must” and “Must Not” conditions, to achieve necessary business scenarios, while configuring a lookup attribute on contract types. 

With this release, ICI provides the ability to configure a lookup attribute using the “IN” filter operator, and display selected multiple values, by referencing multiple values on another lookup master data attribute. 

Configurators can now: 

• Use the "IN” operator in the lookup filter attribute on agreement contract types. 
• View the applied filter on the “Attributes” page on the UI for the selected attribute. 
• Standard ICI users can view only selective values in the lookup attribute as per the referenced value in another attribute.  
   

573339 – Managing user preferences as part of profile management

Users can set preferences for their ICI Web UI account such as language, color theme, time zone, and so on. 

ICI now provides administrators the capability to set preferences as default, for users, according to their locations or the offices they work in. This reduces the end user’s effort of setting up the ICI account with required parameters after the first log-in and presents the system with appropriate and specific pre-settings.   

Administrators can: 

• Set and manage preferences for a single user through a single user update, and for multiple users through the bulk process.
• View preference settings modifications details in the “History” tab for audit. 
• Search users based on parameters related to preference settings.

Users can: 

• Access the ICI system with appropriate details as default after the first login. 
• Override the default preference settings as per individual preferences.
   

604775 – Moving agreement to executed state without uploading the document

Previously in ICI, users could not move agreements and amendments from “Waiting For Signature” to “Executed” state, without uploading the supporting document, in case of manually signed agreements. 

With this release, users can now skip uploading the document, to move agreements from “Waiting For External Signature” or “Waiting For Internal Signature” to the “Executed - (Pending Signed Document)” state. 

Users can then search or create a saved search for such agreements and upload the required documents later using the “Upload Fully Signed Copy” action. Notifications can be configured to inform users about skipped document uploads, so that users can cover for delays occurring due to the scan and upload process while executing a large volume of documents. 

This functionality is available for agreements, amendments, and orphan amendments.
 

614860 – Attaching associated documents to agreement notifications

ICI users can share the main agreement document as part of various email notifications that get triggered for the agreement from time to time. 

In addition to the main agreement document, users can now also send associated documents as part of various email notifications that get triggered for the agreement from time to time. Access to these documents can be controlled based on the type of document – internal, external, or restricted. For example, some documents may only be shared with internal users, some may be shared with internal and external users, whereas some may not be shared with anyone.

With this release:

• Administrators can tag the associated document contract type in the email notification template for agreements, assignment agreements, termination agreements, and amendments.
• Users can define:
  • The type of notification as internal or external. 
  • The type of associated document instance as internal, external, or restricted.
• Based on the type of notification and type of tagged associated documents, attachments are added to the email notification.
   

586492 – Defining different relationship types while associating peer instance

ICI allows users to define the linkage type as a parent, child, or peer while associating peer entities with each other.

With this release, users can define configurable labels for peer associations between existing contracts by configuring the “Linkage Type” masterdata. The configurable labels define various business relationships in the context of contracts. For example, “Related To”, “Linked To”, “Addendum Of”, “Addendum To”, “Parent To”, “Child To”, and so on. The labels can be activated or deactivated as per business requirements.

The configurable labels support the existing two-way linkage and self-linkage types. The amendments on executed agreements will be associated as a peer, with default peer linkage type label, defined in default peer mapping for amendment. 

Users can select configurable peer linkage type labels in the “Linkage Type” drop-down list and view them on various ICI functionalities such as:  

• Agreement creation workflows for peer entities, assignment, and initiate termination flow. 
• Associate and Inheritance icons.
• Bulk actions.
• Agreement creation through business APIs.
• Broadcast – “Attachments” tab and captured notes.

Note: Multiple configurable labels are not supported for parent and child linkage types, as there is specific business logic built with them in the ICI system.

619558 – Downloading amendments using download all functionality

ICI users can download an agreement and all its associations in a zip file using the “Download All” action available on agreements. 

With this release, users will download amendments of an agreement with corresponding parent-child associations in the downloaded zip package. This is supported on the selective download option too.

For ease of access, each selected amendment will be downloaded with its selected associations in separate folders. The folders are named “Amendment_1”, “Amendment_2”, and so on (from oldest to latest), instead of actual amendment names. This helps to overcome the Windows limitation of supporting 260 characters in the file path and gives users the flexibility while creating association’s names.

615291 – Configuring attributes inheritance for amendments at the contract type level

ICI already provided the capability to exclude specific agreement attributes from being copied to amendments through technical configuration, which applied to all agreement contract types by default. 

ICI now provides the flexibility to decide which attributes of an agreement can be copied to amendments at the contract type level, as per business requirements. Configurators can enable or disable the attribute’s inheritance for amendments, using the “Is Inherit On Amendments” flag, at the agreement contract type and template variable levels. Users can then copy these defined attribute values from base agreement to amendment during amendment creation. 

Note: 

• The technical configuration settings for excluding parent agreement attributes from its amendments will always take preference over the settings at agreement contract type and template level.
• The existing validations or dependencies for an attribute’s properties set for the agreement will not be inherited to amendments.
   

614877 – Replacing a user with multiple users

In ICI, administrators can replace user(s) with all associated records using the “Replace User” functionality. In practice, administrators may need to replace a user with more than one user. For example, if a user leaves the organization, the administrator may want to replace that user by dividing agreements associated with that user, in subsets, among multiple users. This would help the organization to balance the workload within its employees. 

Administrators can now: 

• Replace the user with one or more users, by selecting the entity and all/selective instances of that entity, and create a saved search for records to replace users.  
• Validate the replaced user role against the assigned role. 
• Get a notification on adding or completing a task. 
   

This capability is available across ICI for contract requests, agreements, associations, masterdata, template and clause teams, user groups, and rules. A separate data management user interface is provided to carry out these user management actions.

614963 – Superseding agreement values as per amendment using rules

In ICI, users could supersede all attributes of a parent agreement configured as ‘supersedable’ with values from its amendment, either manually using the “Supersede” action or automatically through the auto-supersede task. Users can now selectively supersede individual entities based on business conditions.

The administrator can control the supersede functionality for agreements by:

• Enabling auto supersede option at the contract type level.
• Configuring the “Supersede Rule” with “Is Supersede by Amendments” or “Is Supersede by Termination” options. 
• Selecting attributes in rule actions based on the selected Supersede On option. 

Users can view the attribute’s supersede value on the agreement and the captured history as per the rule execution. When no rule is configured, the supersede functionality will work as per existing ICI behavior.

615293 – Showing or hiding the No Team Available message

In ICI, users may encounter specific workflow configurations, such as the self-approval process, that do not require users added to the team. The “No Team Available” message, displayed in such cases, adds to the number of non-value clicks for users to continue. 

ICI now can suppress this message through technical configuration, thereby minimizing the number of unnecessary clicks. 

Administrators can: 

• Selectively enable or disable the “No Team Available” message window, at the entity contract type level, appearing at various states. 
• Disable the “No Team Available” message window altogether, at the instance level, for all entities. The instance level settings will override the entity level settings. 

Note: This capability is available across ICI for all entities, events, integrations and add-ins in ICI.

618345 – Defining complex conditional logic for attributes visibility

Previously, users could configure a conditional attribute for a contract type with simple conditions using single “equal to” operator. 

With this release, configurators can now set multiple, complex conditions to display ICI Web UI attributes dynamically, based on business scenarios. Configurators can define conditions for attributes for all entities, except for template variables. For example, the configurator can set conditions to display an attribute based on the selection of specific values in any of the attributes mentioned in the condition. The user experience would be similar to the existing ICI conditional attribute functionality.  

Users can now: 

• Apply multiple and complex conditions to display an attribute by enhancing the enable expression (visibility expression) for contract requests, agreements, associations, and masterdata contract types. 
• Support conditional expressions for extension attributes.  
• Define conditions with different operators based on the selected attribute datatype. 
• View the conditional attribute value according to the value entered in the attribute on which a condition is set.

616901 – Applying facets to business status search filter

Business statuses are prominently used across all customers as they reflect the actual status in business terms compared to the system workflow status. Previously, the ICI search functionality supported filters on “Business Status” for users to narrow down results. However, manually selecting filters often becomes a tedious task in the case of several business statuses. 

To provide a better user experience and ease of use, faceted filters using string operators, such as “Contains”, “Exactly”, “Starts With” and “Does Not Contain” are being added to the “Business Status” filters.
 

694211 – Improving handling of exceptions for string combinations

Previously, some combinations of special and alphanumeric characters used as input values resulted in generic exceptions. 

ICI's parsing logic is now improved for handling string combinations with special and alphanumeric characters so that no errors are generated. This applies to all entities across ICI, where a combination of special characters, alphabets, and numbers can be used.
 

732929 – Uploading clauses and templates in bulk

New customers or new groups onboarding to ICI mostly have their templates and clauses already created in a separate file. Previously, manual efforts were needed to onboard the hundreds to thousands of templates and clauses. 

With this release, automation has been provided for bulk import using the “Legacy Upload” tool, which will reduce any human dependency, manual approvals, and delays for onboarding templates and clauses using the current capabilities. ICI administrators can now import templates and upload clauses to ICI in bulk.

Along with the tool, an XML specification document is also released which can be used for creating tags in the input document files of clauses and templates.
 

655507 – Uploading and downloading large files with the file path attribute

ICI now provides support for larger files. This is applicable to masterdata and associations.

Users can now:

• Upload files up to 4GB under the file selection attribute. 
• Upload files with all supported file extensions allowed in the file selection attribute.
• Download All/Download Package up to 6 GB.

ICI supports virus scanning of large files if the virus scan feature is enabled.
 

Note: This is not applicable for contract requests, agreements, associations with large files in the DocuSign/Adobe Sign association selection pop-up, document assembly, bulk actions, legacy upload, integrations (Salesforce, Workday, etc.), and APIs. The Upload/Download of the files would be supported for Azure and Windows Storage.

618994 – Supporting special characters in agreement templates and support to skip empty columns while a saved search/association is tagged in a template

Previously in ICI, attribute names did not support special characters apart from _ (underscore), & (ampersand), and space. 

Now, support is provided for special characters in the attribute display name. The characters *(asterisk), - (dash), : (colon), ( (parenthesis open), ) (parenthesis closed), ’ (apostrophe), , (comma), and . (period) can be used in the display name of attributes for contract requests, agreements, associations, and masterdata contract types. The same attribute display name, as provided by the configurator, will now be displayed including special characters.

In scenarios where the association or saved search is tagged as a table in the agreement, and a particular column of the table does not have any data, we have introduced a functionality to skip such empty columns. 

During template creation from Icertis Experience for Word, the configurator can add a “SkipEmptyColumns” property while tagging an association or a saved search as a table. This property needs to be added manually in the “Content Control Properties”, at any position after the contract type GUID, separated by a '|' (pipe separator). This enables empty columns to be skipped in document assembly, thereby eliminating unnecessary empty columns in the agreement version. The order of the columns in the table is determined by the attributes in the display preference of the associated document contract type. 

Amendments to an agreement are now viewable in a grid-view in addition to the current tile view. This provides more information and enables standard grid view functionalities such as search, filter, and export. 
 

573336 – Displaying drop-downs as radio buttons or checkbox list for user selection

With this release, ICI provides new controls for multi-select and single-select choice attributes. 

Users can configure an alternate UI control for drop-downs with a limited number of values for choice attributes at contract type, global attribute, and template variable levels. This improves the user experience as the number of clicks and scrolls required to view options in a drop-down are considerably reduced and provides better readability in terms of post-selection data review.   

Users can select: 

• The radio button for single-select choice attributes. 
• The checkbox list for multi-select choice attributes.

The configuration applies across ICI for the creation and editing of agreement, amendment, associated document, masterdata, and contract request entities.

593421 – Labeling agreement document versions as per signature copy

While agreements go through various signature states till executed, users can now navigate to the “Versions” tab and easily identify which version of the agreement is internally signed, externally signed, or fully signed.

872309 – Providing flexibility for assembling associations tagged as clauses

In ICI, on publishing and updating actions, all clauses are evaluated, assembled and changes are reflected in the agreement document. However, if associations are tagged in clauses, on “Assemble Contract” and “Send For Approval” actions, clauses do not get assembled and associations do not get populated in the agreement document.

As part of our continuous effort to provide flexibility to ICI users and improve the user experience, a key “Core.Agreement.EnableDynamicClauseAssemblyPostCreate” has been introduced. 

• If the key is enabled, when an associated document is uploaded, the entire document will be automatically assembled (Clause, Attribute, Associations, Saved Search) on the “Assemble Contract” and “Send For Approval” actions.
• If the key is not enabled, the ICI document will be assembled on “Publish” and “Edit Agreement” actions. Only associations will be assembled on the “Assemble Contract” and “Send For Approval” actions.

Note: By default, the key is set to false.
 

Mobile App Updates

773907 – Refreshing tasks and commitments
Icertis mobile app users perform actions such as approve, reject and request review on contract requests and agreements. However, the status of the requests or agreements list did not automatically refresh. Enhancements have now been made to the “Refresh” functionality for “Tasks” and “Commitment” tabs to automatically refresh on these actions and improve usability.

850259 – Updating logo and attributes to new guidelines
As part of our effort to consistently improve user experience, the logo and all attributes in the mobile app have been updated as per the new ICI branding guidelines.

773923 – Changing compatibility in Android 11
With this release, Android 11 compatibility changes have been made by setting the target SDK version to 30 for and deprecated methods have been updated.

773917 – Deprecating the UI WebView component for iOS
With this release, the UI WebView component for iOS has been deprecated.

ICI API Enhancements 

Enhancements to ICI Add-ins 

745266 – Supporting online editing of agreements

As part of contract management, agreement and amendment documents regularly go through reviews, where multiple stakeholders and teams have to review and/or edit a contract before it is sent out to external parties for their reviews and signature. 

To make changes or modifications to an agreement, ICI users previously had to download a copy, perform edits and upload it back to ICI. This created a version of the document in ICI. Primary owners had to send the documents over emails to get inputs from multiple departments such as delivery and legal, which they would later have to consolidate to create the contract document. This approach not only led to aggregation overheads, but audit information was often lost too, and it was not possible to trace what was approved and by whom.

With this release, ICI offers online editing support for agreement documents creating radical operational efficiency for contract owners.

It is now possible for:

• Primary owners, secondary owners and reviewers with edit privileges to initiate an online editing session, where more than one party can edit parallelly using existing MS Word capabilities. 
• An agreement document, which has been edited using online editing, to be published to ICI, without any loss of information.

Note: 

• The online Word editor is available only for users with valid Office 365 subscription.
• Only users with edit privileges on a document can make changes to the document online.
• Users must either allow third-party cookies or add “*.officeapps.live.com” to their browser's cookie “Allow” list, in order to use Office Online smoothly.

588686 – Tagging clause extended attributes in clause text

ICI allows users to capture additional details for clauses in the extended attributes. 

Now, users have the capability to tag clause extended attributes, if configured, inside the clause along with clause metadata, while creating or modifying the clause from within the Icertis Experience for Word.

The value of tagged clause extended attributes will be resolved and displayed in the clause text upon tagging of the attribute or saving the clause.

668859 – Enhancing filtering and searching of clauses  

In ICI, clauses can be filtered on the basis of clause groups and searched on the basis of their clause name. This filtering and searching capabilities have been improved, so that users can easily retrieve the desired template and clause record, thus improving usability for customers having large number of clauses and templates in their clause and template library.

Users can now:

• Search and filter clauses and templates based on the name or text inside the clause or template respectively.
• Perform free text search on clauses and templates.

603690 – Updating templates automatically with latest clause version

Legal teams may need to make changes to a clause available in the clause library for varied reasons. This clause may be used in multiple templates used for various transactions. It may also require template updation, so that the latest version of the clause can be used in all future transactions.

To facilitate this, users can now update all or selected templates with the latest version of the clause whenever any clause is modified, thus eliminating the need for the legal team to manually do so. 

Users can select templates to be updated when a clause is modified. The selected templates are automatically updated after the clause is approved and will move to the next logical state once modification is done.

 
593421 – Labeling agreement document versions as per signature copy

Previously in ICI, agreements signed only by external, internal or both signatories were termed as “Internal Signed Copy”, “External Signed Copy” and “Final Signed Copy” respectively, and were displayed on the “Version” tab.

This capability has been further enhanced so that the signature versions are clearly labeled as “Internal”, “External” or “Fully Signed Copy”, as applicable, so that the user can easily identify the agreement version.

Enhancements to Artificial Intelligence Applications in ICI

727318 – Enhancing AI powered playbook in Icertis Experience for Word

ICI provides the legal playbook in Icertis Experience for Word that uses artificial intelligence to identify exceptions in the contract document, allowing users to review and take corrective actions on them, and assess the risk when these exceptions are accepted by negotiators.  

With this release, the legal playbook is enhanced and provides more options to work with playbook from Icertis Experience for Word. 

Users can now: 

• View the visual indication for clauses with playbook exceptions on “Agreement Clause” page.  
• View playbook details in a separate resizable window. 
• View all playbook positions for a selected contract type with options to search and filter within. 
• View all playbook positions for a selected agreement clause. 
• Add deviation to the clause from playbook “Details” page. 
• Add a new playbook record and edit the existing playbook record from within the Icertis Experience for Word.

575475 – Automating user feedback for clauses, obligations and attributes

ICI AI apps have been positioned to be intelligent assistants to help users in taking decisions when populating details for agreements. While AI discovery recommends values to users, it is expected that users would select the correct value at the time of review.  

During clause review of discovered clause, AI suggests a list of library clauses to be matched with the discovered clause. If a user selects one of them or selects a completely new clause from library, the AI algorithm learns from such user actions. These learnings are incorporated in the next discoveries to improve the accuracy of clause recommendations.

539492 – Improving clause delineation in DiscoverAI

Clauses in an agreement document that are found using DiscoverAI are displayed along with clause categories in the “Clause Discovery” section on the Web UI. 

ICI has now improved its logic for clause delineation to determine the start and end of the clause text. 

Users can now: 

• Edit the discovered clauses list or manually selected clause text to merge or split into multiple clauses. 
• Create a sub-clause within a discovered clause. 
• Change the clause category and the level (parent or child) of the discovered clause.  
• Choose to view only the level 0 clauses.

770375 – Merging metadata discovery page with attribute page

Previously in ICI, the AI attribute discovery process on agreements with third party paper was triggered on create and post-create events such as publish. Users might have already entered the attribute values before initiating the create/publish action, thereby making attributes discovery process redundant. Also, the process needed to maintain two different attribute pages, with customizations and validations not being available on the attribute discovery page. 

With this release, users can manually trigger the attribute discovery on the “Attributes” page itself, while uploading a third-party document, during create and edit agreement process. Discovered values will then be auto-filled in empty attributes and users can view additional recommended values for the discovered attributes. 

Users can: 

• View the discovery completion progress. 
• Identify discoverable attributes marked with the spinner icon.
• Get side-by-side document view for discoverable attributes.
• Get side-by-side document view for tagged attributes upon completion of discovery.

The merging of “Metadata Discovery” page with “Attributes” page will only work for agreements with third party papers.

727312 – Formatting based clause delineation for additional document types

In the previous release, support was introduced to display clause hierarchy in well-formatted .docx agreements.

With this release, the clause delineation functionality has been enhanced to support PDF documents, as well as for Word documents which do not use any styles. This enhancement helps to get better clause delineation while migrating legacy contracts, as AI assisted configuration is largely dependent on accuracy of formatting-based clause delineation for PDF documents.

Clause discovery processor is now trained to identify sections, and sub-sections in Word and PDF documents, up to 3 levels. Support for formatting-based clause delineation has now also been extended to the Icertis Experience for Word, wherein the discovered clauses are displayed to the user in hierarchical format.

727314 – Supporting additional languages in AI apps

In the previous release, support was provided for clause and obligation discovery for agreements in German, Spanish and Portuguese languages.

With this release, the discovery models will be enhanced to support the following additional languages – French, Dutch and Swedish. Support will be provided for DiscoverAI, NegotiateAI and DiscoverAI for legacy, for auto-detection of language, as well as for bilingual contracts.

Note: Scanned PDF documents are currently not supported for automatically detecting the language.

710739 – Configuring custom rules in DiscoverAI

Previously, attribute discovery and obligation discovery were dependent on inbuilt schema Excel files. Adding and updating the schema rules for any attribute or obligation required technical details of the code. 

With this release, the Excel schema has been deprecated and has been replaced with a rule engine, which can be used to easily write a rule in simple language, and the schema will be generated dynamically, thereby making it more user friendly. 

The rules engine will help configure custom rules for Obligation Discovery, Attributes Discovery and Playbook Discovery, using an inbuilt .NET based rule editor and the ICI master data entity.
 

Enhancements to Reports

514593 – Introducing Tagged Attributes Report for attributes tagged in clauses and templates

With this release, a new “Tagged Attributes Report”, which helps administrators understand the complete profile of an attribute and how it has been tagged across different clauses and templates. This provides them better visibility into attribute usage and saves them considerable time.

This report, available on the “Reports” tile, can be accessed based on the security groups configuration. The report can be filtered using the “Select Attribute” and “Select Entity” parameters. Based on the selected entity, the following columns are displayed – Clause/Template Code, Clause/Template Name, Contract Type, Clause/Template Version, Clause/Template Created By, Clause/Template Created On, Version Updated On, Attribute tagged as Template Variable, Attribute tagged as Clause Extended Attribute and Attribute Display Name

769602 – Displaying clause extension attribute summary in the Clause Summary Report

Previously, the “Clause Summary Report” displayed “Clause Summary” and “Clause Version Summary” sections on the report index page.

In this release, the report is being enhanced to display “Clause Extension Summary” which displays details on extended clause attributes. If the clause extended entity is defined for an ICI instance, then this report will display the information of the clause extension attributes. The “Clause Extension Version Summary” will display the latest values of clause extension attributes.

 
514611 – Enhancing Notifications History Report for an entity

ICI administrators can set up subscriptions for different entities, for notifications to be sent to subscribed users at the occurrence of certain events. Notifications can also be sent using the broadcast functionality. The “Notifications History Report” provides visibility into which notifications were sent, when, and to whom, by displaying an audit history of notifications for the particular entity. 

The default report is available for contract requests, agreements and associated documents, and is accessible through the left navigation pane of the details page, for an instance of the aforementioned entities. This report displays a list of notifications sent for an entity, including details such as the event that triggered the notification, the message body, subject, the To, CC, BCC recipient names and email addresses; along with other details such as the attachment file names or sent date and time. 

742607 – Providing additional localization support in reports

With this release, localization support will be provided in the Core platform, Sourcing, Obligation Management and Insights SSRS reports, in the following areas: 

• Contract type names, if the respective entity has locale resource key values in database. 
• Drop-down with Yes/No values.
• Graph and Time zone tool tips, if present in the report.
• Column headers.  
• Any error or validation messages.
• Informative messages such as “No data available”. 

583297 – Filtering additional reports by agreement status

Previously the "Agreement Status" filter was available for the “Agreements Pending Approval Report”, “Expiring Agreements Report”, “Average Agreement TurnAroundTime Report” and “Expired Agreements Report”. 

This filter is now also available for the "Agreement Deviation Report" and "Agreements Pending Execution Report". Users have the option to exclude terminated or archived agreements from this report, thus allowing them to derive the exact number and information as required.

746607 – Enhancing the Cycle Time Report

The “Cycle Time Report” displays the cycles for contracts requests, agreements, agreements with contract requests, and the change of status for each entity from the date of creation to the date of execution, as well as the elapsed time. This enables users to get the turnaround time for tasks and take corrective actions wherever necessary. 

With this release, an “Organization Unit” filter is being introduced in this report for users to be able to derive the desired information.

737196 – Adding hyperlink in PowerBI for agreement code

A new column has been added in PowerBI for “Agreement Code”, which has a hyperlink, that navigates the user to the agreement in ICI.
 

Integrations

605434 – Providing a unified flexible signature process

ICI has now improved the electronic signature process to provide a unified flexible signature workflow.

With this release, the following capabilities have been added to the ICI signature process:

• Introducing the hybrid signature process.
• Enabling DocuSign console for users to add and modify the signatories.
• Support for preview in DocuSign console.
• Support for tagging signatories in DocuSign console.
• Support for Advanced Electronic Signature (AES) and Qualified Electronic Signature (QES) in DocuSign.

641289 – Allowing parallel signatures using DocuSign

Previously, DocuSign integration provided support for sequential signatures. This capability has been improved to allow parallel signatures, so that multiple signatories can sign the agreement simultaneously, thus reducing the overall turnaround time for the complete signature process.

With this release:

• Users can define the parallel signatories using rules.
• Users can configure parallel signatories via the DocuSign console.
• DocuSign process can be triggered in parallel for the configured signatories.
• Sync back, audit and history can be captured in the ICI agreement.

701825– Supporting multiple vendors for electronic signature

Previously, ICI supported one signature vendor within one instance of ICI. Now, multiple electronic signature vendors are supported in the same instance. 

With this release, users can:

• Select the provider at the agreement or amendment level, for electronic signature and execution. This is achieved by using the choice attribute “Esignature Provider” with “DocuSign” and “Adobe Sign” as options.
• Define standard rules and conditions to automatically select the provider for agreements and amendments.

Note: This is applicable to DocuSign and Adobe Sign.

751651 – Syncing data task in Salesforce to publish completion notification on ASB

Sales agreements with customers are created in Salesforce using the ICI adapter for integration. Previously, users had to click “Assemble Contract” to sync data and reflect any changes on the agreement document.

With this release:

• Document assembly is triggered automatically after every update from Salesforce. The changes will reflect in the generated agreement document once the instance and associations are synced, without clicking “Assemble Contract”.
• Upon completion of data sync task for an opportunity, the Salesforce data sync task raises a “Data Sync Complete/Failed” event on the Azure Service Bus (ASB) upon completion of data sync for the given opportunity.
• A message containing the opportunity Id and agreement SysId is updated, and the time stamp is also displayed.

796155 – Improving data flow between Salesforce and ICI

Previously, when changes were made to an agreement in the "Sent for External Signature" status, the data was synced from Salesforce to the ICI UI, but not in the template document. 

Additionally, the agreement status changed only when an attribute which is tagged in the template was changed. However, if an attribute which was not tagged in the template changed, it was updated in the ICI UI and the status of agreement also remained the same.

With this release:

• Changes made to agreements in Salesforce while they are in Send for External Signature, Send for Internal Signature, Executed or Expired statuses will not be updated to the ICI UI. 
• When attributes are not tagged in the template document and the same attribute is mapped with Salesforce, updating the value of that field in Salesforce will change the status of the agreement from "Waiting for Approval" or "Approved" to "Draft"; unless it is a tracking attribute. 

This will ensure that the ICI UI and the template document will always be in sync and there are no compliance issues.

674469 – Sending success or failures alerts for monitoring in Salesforce

An alert mechanism is introduced for successes and failures in Icertis Experience for Salesforce integrations. 

With this release:

• All messages at ICI end can now be monitored by customers, and they will be able to retry transactions, if needed. 
• Additional logging has been introduced for ICI-Salesforce integration messages. Every message log will include the status, message Id and the incoming JSON details. 
• Configurators also send email notifications to ICI users on forward/reverse data sync so that the recipients can take appropriate actions.

679797 – Supporting OAuth in Salesforce adapter

Effective password management is an integral part of any corporate security policy. However, there are some risks involved in using user Id and password for authentication and authorization of production systems in an enterprise. Security organizations also had stringent security policies which do not approve user id or password authentication process. 

With this release, support is provided for OAuth, a more secured authentication and authorization process. This makes the ICI application more secured and is easy for customers to manage using an actual business user Id, instead of a service user to update the records in ICI. It also removes any access issues involved in the business process. Customers do not have to add owners of the record to contracts team to obtain access.

When entities in Salesforce are updated by a user, the process builder sends a message to ASB queue with minimal data such as entity Id. ICI task service picks the message, obtains integration user credentials from JSON or AKV, and makes an API call to Salesforce to fetch the changes. There are no user interactions involved in this asynchronous process, the task service uses the service user login to update the ICI records. 

When data in Salesforce is updated and data sync job is triggered, the Salesforce adapter will use client Id and secret key from AKV to fetch a user token, for invoking Salesforce APIs, using OAuth protocol.

749083 – Supporting OAuth in the MS CRM adapter

Previously, MS CRM plugin used logged in user credentials to invoke ICI APIs when sales users updated any entity in MS CRM. Also, reverse data sync flow used service user login credentials to invoke MS CRM APIs when data was updated in ICI. 

ICI now uses the client id and secret key instead of user id and password for authentication/authorization process between Salesforce and ICI. The server-to-server OAuth support is provided, so that the adapter and task service will use client Id and secret key from AKV, invoking MS CRM APIs. 

Users will have the option to choose the authentication mechanism to be used. The system will provide the support for backward compatibility of old username and password flow.

ICI Platform Tools

514636 – Enhancing P2P Tool in ICI Admin user interface

With this release, enhancements have been made in ICI to support additional entities for a seamless P2P experience. This functionality, provided to administrators, can promote configurable entities in pre-production environments to production environments, thus reducing the manual efforts to do so.
The following entities are now supported:

• Organizations (Orgs), Organization Groups (Org Groups)
• Users, User Groups, Security Groups
• Role Action Mapping
• Currencies
• Reasons
• Attribute Group
• SLA Matrix
• Notification Category
• Default Search Columns
• Cascade Team
• Application Settings
• Global/Admin Saved Searches

Note: Customers using ICI versions before 7.15 will need to upgrade to use this feature.

Partner Enablement

703386 – Icertis Software Development Kit for Partner Enablement

Icertis develops strategic partnerships to drive shared business growth, deliver quality implementations and maximize customer satisfaction. In release 7.12, we introduced the Software Development Kit (SDK) to provide the resources and tools needed while implementing ICI. 

As part of our continuous efforts to support our partners, we have upgraded the following documents for this release:

• ICI Coding Guidelines (version 2): This document helps developers to follow specific guidelines and best practices while coding. The database coding guidelines have now been added.

• ICI Customization and Use Cases (version 2): This document explains how to perform customizations and provides some sample use cases that will help understand how to implement and execute ICI customizations. The document has been updated to support typescript.

• Working with ICI Tasks: Updated for the 7.15 release.

• Working with ICI Hooks: Updated for the 7.15 release.

• ICI Developer Library: Updated for the 7.15 release.

• Local Environment Setup using ICI Binaries: Updated for the 7.15 release.

• Self-Serve Tools: Updated for the 7.15 release.

Technical Requirements for Release 7.15

The Icertis Contract Intelligence base system can be accessed from any device with an Internet connection and a supported Internet browser. Not all features may be available on all environments. Specific customer environments may have other requirements. The software and hardware requirements for client system as well as mobile application are listed in the table below.

Related Topics: Agreement Management | Association Management | Compliance Management | Template Management | Clause Management | Configuration | Reports | Advanced Analytics | User Administration | ICI Tools |  Icertis Business Apps | AIML | ICI Add-ins | ICI Mobile App | ICI Business Apps Release Notes |