Associations

Associated documents are additional legal documents or supplementary materials added to an Agreement.

Associated documents can be:

• Created using a Template
• Uploaded into ICI
• Prepared from the Associated Document Contract Type model

From the Association Management tile you can:

• Search an Associated document
• Create an Associated document
• Approve an Associated document

Searching an Associated Document

Use Search feature to get relevant search results. You can use various methods to narrow down your search and locate the specific Associated Document you are looking for.

To search Associated Documents:

1. Click the "Associations" on the Home page. The "Associations" page opens.

2. Search for a specific Associated Document by using any of the following options:

• Under Search For:
  • Click the Select Field list, and then select the appropriate item from the list. The relevant results are populated. For example, if you select Status (to filter Associations according to various status' of associated documents), list of various states of Associated Documents is displayed. You can then select appropriate status such as Approved, draft.
  • The number in the bracket denotes the number of available items which contain the search term. You can select multiple options at the same time.
  • To narrow your search, type free text in the Custom Keyword box, and then click "Apply".
• Alternatively, type keywords in the "Refine Search here" box. A list of relevant Associated Documents opens.
• You can further narrow your search by using any of the following methods:
  • "..." - Type the search term in double quotation marks. It shows existing Associated Documents that include the exact search term.
    • ...* - Type the search term in star characters. It shows existing Associated Documents that include the exact search term.
    • ... - Prefix * to the search term. It shows existing Associated Documents that end with this term.
  • ...* - Suffix * to the search term. It shows existing Associated Documents that start with this term.

Creating an Associated Document

In ICI, you can create the Associated documents separately. 

To create an Associated document:

1. Click the "Associations"  tile on the "Home"page. 

2. 'Click "Create" on the "Associations' page. The "Create Association" page opens. 

3. Select Parent Agreement by clicking the icon. The Lookup Search window opens.

4. Select the parent Agreement that you want the document to be associated with. You can select only Parent Agreement.

5. Click "Select". This takes you back to the Create Associated Document page with the selected document displayed in the Parent Contract field.

6. Select the Category.

7. Select the Contract Type Name.

8. Click Next. Metadata section of the Create Association page opens. Click the Go to Parent Agreement link to access the relevant Parent Agreement.

9. In the Metadata tab, enter the appropriate information for the attributes.

10. Select the File Path field to upload the Associated document. 

11. Click "Create". The Associated Document gets created and the Agreement Details page opens. You can see the Associations here. ICI allows you to assemble both text and images in the Association file in the main Agreement document.

Using parent’s Organization Unit path when creating associated document

During creation, the organization unit path of the parent document will be displayed by default as the org path for the associated document, thus improving the usability. 

• Import of Association (Line item)
• Auto Attachment Association
• Obligation/Fulfillment (Association of Association)

Creating associations on create/edit wizard of agreement

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. 

Configuring Inline Associations

As a prerequisite to enable Inline Associations for an agreement, the agreement’s contract type must be configured. To configure the agreement contract type for inline associations:

1. Go to the Association tab of the agreement contract type, for example Automation Non Editable Agreement.

 
2. Click the plus icon next to Association. The Add Association content will be displayed. 

 

Note: The association (associated document contract type) should NOT have template enabled; the approver workflow flag needs to be set to False and constraint should be None or Prerequisite (not Postrequisite). If these criteria are not satisfied, the Inline Associations flag will automatically be disabled.

3. Set the appropriate flags. In order to enable Inline Associations, the Inline Association flag must be set to Yes.

Note: If the Inline Associations flag is enabled then the Defined By Rule flag gets disabled by default. Alternatively, if the Defined By Rule flag is set to Yes, the Inline Associations functionality will be disabled.

4. As an option you can configure a Rule on this contract type with Copy Attribute Value condition for select attributes, for example for the Contract Value.

 

Using Inline Associations

1. Go to "Agreements"> "Create" on the "Agreements" page. The Create Agreement page opens.

 
2. Select the Contract Type Name which has the Inline Associations flag enabled. For example, Automation Non Editable Agreement.

3. Click Next. The Initial Attributes page opens.

 
4. Enter details such as Name, Test Case Id, Contract Value, and so on.

5. Click Next. The Auto-saving agreement and loading inline associations message is displayed and the page reloads displaying the Inline Association page.

 
6. Click the Add button. The Create Association popup window opens.

7. Enter the appropriate attribute values. 

8. Click Create. The page reloads and the Association count is updated to 1. Alternatively you can click Save And Create New to create one association and to refresh the page for another association to be created. The “Save and Create New” action is only applicable for adding new associations and will not be available for updating or copying existing association.

9. Click the More icon in the Actions column. The actions available are: 

• Edit: Select to open the Edit Association page in the same tab.
• View Record: Select to open the Associated Document details page in a new tab.
• Copy: Select to create a copy of the association.
• Disassociate: Select to disassociate the Association.
• View Document: Select to view an uploaded document, if any.
• View Smart Links: Select to view smart links if available.

Note: The actions displayed are based on user authorization.

 

Assembly of Associated documents based on a defined order 

ICI enables users to define the format for assembly of associations tagged as a Table or file in the main Agreement using Saved Search. This is accomplished by tagging Saved Searches of associated documents in an agreement.

Defining the order of Associated documents using Save Search

 

 

 

 

Tagging of Associated Documents in the Agreement Template with Saved Search

 

 
19. Associated documents are sorted based on the Saved Searches.  
 

Understanding Multi-Party Agreements

Additional platform support for Associations have been added. These enhancements support full platform functionality for Association metadata that was previously available only for Agreement metadata. The additional enhancements fall into three main areas:

1. Ability to use Association Attributes in Rules
2. Ability to tag Association Attributes in Agreement and Clause Templates
3. Ability to use faceted search for Association Attributes from the main Search page
4. Ability to compare Association tagged as a table across versions

One of the primary functional drivers for these new capabilities is to enable full functionality for Multi-party Agreements.

Making the Association type itself available while selecting Attributes

Building on the functionality around one-to-many relationships in Associations, ICI provides the ability to reference Association counts in Rule criteria. Since Rules can now be written for individual Attributes of an Association, it enables Admins to write Rules based on the count of Associations that have been added of a specific type. All attributes for Associations are available for the given Rule conditions and every Association has a specific sequence number so that the metadata of that sequence is tagged in the Template. You can search selected values of an Agreement or an Associated Document. For a multi-division Agreement, ICI supports writing Rules based on individual instances of the multi-value attributes.

When Rules are written based on the Attributes of the Association, the rules support tagging of the Metadata that belongs to the association. The associations may either be parent-child or peer. After the content control tag is entered, the value of the associated instances’ metadata is placed in the content control as shown in the example below.

Introducing a Content Control tag for Association Metadata

You can create a saved search to get the Association attribute and assemble it in the Agreement. You can sort any of the available columns. The name of the saved search is used to tag that association’s Metadata into the Template. This feature works only on Publish Agreement and Edit Agreement.

These changes to the attribute are done by editing the content control in Word manually. The example below shows the content control tag.

Note: This is not available in ICI Word Add-in.

Example:

Editing a content control tag

1. To tag the association’s metadata to the clause, edit the control tag as follows:

ICMAssociation|AssociationSavedSearchName{0}.ICMClientContactPerson

where,

• The selected Contact Person from the Contract Party association’s sequence is 1.
• The index is a zero based index. 0 means 1^st instance, 1 means 2^nd instance, and so on.

2. The sample content control will look as follows:

Click here to enter text.

Adding a content control tag

1. Check if the Developer ribbon is available in the Word menu. To enable it, go to:

        File -> Options -> Customize Ribbon -> Enable Developer

2. Select Plain Text Content Control -> Properties and add the attribute’s display name in the Title.

3. Add ICMAssociation|AssociationSavedSearchName{index}.{Attribute’s Technical Name}

where,

• ICMAssociation: This is static and does not change.
• AssociationSavedSeachName: As explained above.
• Index: This is a zero based index. 0 means 1^st instance, 1 means 2^nd instance, and so on.
• Attribute’s Technical Name: The technical name of the attribute of Association, such as, ICMCountryName, ICMPartyName, and so on.

Comparing Association tagged as a table across Agreement versions

The functionality of alerting users on redlining of changes in Association tagged as a table is visible through the Versions tab of the Agreement document. Let’s see an example where the user edits a table tagged as Association and then uploads a revised Agreement to ICI and how ICI alerts the user regarding the changes made in the table tagged as an Association.

To edit an existing Agreement where a table is tagged as an Association:   

1.  Click the Agreement Management tile on the Home page.  The Agreement Management page opens.
2.  Click the View Record icon next to the Agreement in which you want to edit the Associated Document table. The Agreement Details page opens. For example, Main Sales Order 2.

 
3.  Click Download to download the Agreement. The Agreement gets downloaded in Microsoft Word document (.Docx) format.
4.  Edit the Associated Document table. For example, let’s remove existing numbers 83, 67, and 75 from the cells of the Display Label column of Line Item: Table1. 

5.  Click Save.
6.  Click Upload Document in ICI. The Upload Document window opens.
7.  Click Select File to select the revised Template.  
8.  Click Upload File to upload the revised file. The Please Confirm window opens with a message Changes in Association Table(s).

 
 
9.  Click the Show Changes link to view the changes made in the Association Tables. The Association Tables window opens highlighting the removed values (83,67 and 75)  in the Display Labelcolumn. 

 
Legends:

12.  Click the Versions tab to view the different Agreement documents with revised Associated tables.
 

 
13.  Click the Show All Details link to view the changes in the Association Table(s). 

To view Associated table changes through Icertis Experience for Word

When modifications are made using the Icertis Experience for Word, a user can view the changes in the Associated table of the published Agreement.

Highlighting changes in Associations tagged as a file

ICI alerts the user and presents a summary of any text that is added or modified in association(s) tagged as file(s).  

The following actions take place as soon as a new agreement version is uploaded:

• The version being uploaded is compared with the latest version available in ICI 
• A window is displayed alerting the changes made in associations

Highlighting changes in Associations using Icertis Experience for Word

To view changes in Associations tagged as a file:
1. Click Download in ICI. The agreement document is downloaded.
2. Click Enable Editing to edit the agreement document.
3. Log on to Icertis Experience for Word. 
4. Edit the agreement document. For example, let us edit Annexure2, which is tagged as an association as a file.
5. Click Publish. The Publish Agreement window opens. 

 
6. Enter a note. 

 
7. Click Save. A validation message window opens indicating the warnings or errors so that you can take appropriate actions to proceed.

 
8. Click View all modifications. The ICI Web page opens displaying the modifications made in the association files. For example, Annexure2 association files. 

 
9. Click Download Comparison to view the comparison between the previous agreement version and the current version. This document highlights the modifications made.

 

Highlighting changes in Associations using ICI

1. Click Download in ICI. The agreement document is downloaded.
2. Click Enable Editing to edit the agreement document.
3. Log on to Icertis Experience for Word. 
4. Edit the agreement document. For example, let us edit Annexure2, which is tagged as an association as a file.

 
5. Save the agreement document.
6. Click Upload Document. The Upload Document window opens.
7. Click Select File. For example, ICISaasAgreement.Docx.

 
8. Click Upload File. The Please Confirm window opens indicating the changes in the Association File(s).

 

 
11. Click Show All Details on the Versions tab. 

 
The Details window opens indicating that the Association file has been modified.

Localization support for attribute values in tagged associations

The localization support has been provided for association entities assembled as a file, table or saved search in a single as well as bilingual template. The localization covers attribute data types such as string masterdata lookup,  choice/multi-choice, Date and DateTime Format, Percentage, Number, Boolean and Currency format, as well as attribute groups and extension attributes on ICI UI.

This support will be available with the version upgrade without any further configuration. Here are some points to keep in mind regarding the localization for attribute values of tagged associations:

• For agreements with associations tagged as table or saved search as table, the attribute values will be displayed in local languages automatically when the document is assembled.
• For existing agreements, the attribute values will be localized when the document assembly is carried out explicitly.
• For executed or terminated agreements, the localization is not supported for attribute values of tagged associations.

When  the localization is not defined, the attribute values for association entities will be displayed in a language depending on specific business criteria. To apply the localization in ICI, Administrators should maintain the translation values against respective resource keys using the Translation Editor tool. Refer to theLocalization support across ICI for more details on the business scenarios.

Approving an Associated Document

When the Associated Document is created, the approval rule triggers, and the document is sent to the approvers that are set by the approver rule. If you are an approver, you can approve or reject the associated document.

To approve an Associated Document:

1. Click the Tasks tile on the Home page. The User Tasks page opens.

2. Click the Association name link that you want to approve. The Associated Document Details page opens.

3. To Approve the document, click Approve. To reject the document, click Reject. A notification is sent to the Primary and Secondary Owner of the document every time an approver approves or rejects a document.

4. If you click:

• Approve: The Add Note window opens. Type your comments and then click Add. The associated document gets approved.
• Reject: The Add Note window opens. Type your comments, select the appropriate reason code, and then click Add. The Associated Document gets rejected and goes into the Draft state.

You can enable, disable, reassign, or remove approvers using the respective buttons from the Team tab of the Association after it is created. This can be done for the Associations that are in Approved or Waiting for Approval states.

If you are an approver of the Associations for Agreements and Amendments, you can request more information for an Association that is in Waiting for Approval state using the Need More Info button. You can also remove yourself as an Approver using the Remove Mebutton for an Association that is Waiting for Approval.

Uploading and downloading large files with the File Path attribute

ICI now provides support for larger files. 

Users can now:

• Large file support is added in masterdata and association only.
• 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.
• Only Azure and Windows store are supported.

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

To upload a large file:

1. Click Configuration > Contract Types > Categories.

2. Select Type of Contract from the drop-down.

3. Select the contract type where you want to enable this functionality.

4. On the Attributes tab of the Edit Contract Type page, select any File Selection data type attribute such as File Path in the Selected Attributes column.

5. Enter a Display Name for the attribute. 

6. Toggle the Enable Large File Upload to Yes. This flag provides support for large files in File Selection and File Path attributes.

Note:

• Depending on the data type, the Enable Large File Upload attribute will be enabled.
• Once this flag is enabled, it cannot be disabled.
• The attribute is always disabled for contract requests and agreements as they are not supported.

7. Click Save to save your changes and Publish.

8. Click Association Management > Create Association.

9. On the Meta Data tab, click Select File in the File Path field.

10. Select the file that you want to upload.

• If the file size does not exceed the configured limit (4GB), then the file will be uploaded and displayed on the page.
• If the file size exceeds the configured limit, a message will be displayed that the maximum allowed size had exceeded.

11. Select the file that you want to upload in the associated document (Annexure Document) field. 

Note:

• For file attributes, you have to explicitly upload the file by clicking the Upload File button, unlike the file path attribute. You can also view the progress of the upload. When the file is uploaded, the progress bar turns green.
• Uploading a file may take some time depending on the network bandwidth, connection speed, file size, etc.

To download a large file:

11. When the association is created, click the Versions tab on the association Details page.

12. Click the Download icon to download the large file that has been uploaded. 

13. Click Preview if you want to preview the file. The Preview not supported for document type message will be displayed.

Note: For file path attributes, the Preview can be generated. However, for large files, restrictions have been added to avoid performance impact. However, the files can be viewed on the Versions tab and the audit history.

To download all (large) files:

15. Click the Download All button.

16. On the Download window, select the files that you want to download in a zip format.

• If the file size does not exceed the configured limit (6GB), then the files will be downloaded in a zip format.
• If the file size exceeds the configured limit, a message will be displayed that the total file size exceeds the download limit.

Note: Creating the zip file may take some time. A message will be displayed when the download starts.

17. Click Download All. The files will be downloaded in a zip format.

Supporting rich documents preview using MS Office for Web

The document preview has now been enhanced to provide the rich preview experience using Microsoft Office for Web. This rich preview is available for agreements, associated documents and file type attributes.
With MS Office for Web, users can now preview MS Excel and PowerPoint files, however, the existing supported file formats such as images, PDF and MS Word will continue to use the current technical solution to generate file previews.
Configurators can enable or disable the MS Office for Web based preview feature through the technical configuration.  

 

Extending inline association support for contract request and introducing file drop functionality in inline association

ICI enables users to create association instances as part of agreement creation or update wizard. When creating or updating an agreement or amendment, users can create, view, or delete inline associations. 

This inline associations functionality has been extended to contract request create/update wizard as well. The users can create, view or delete associations while creating or updating the contract requests.

On a separate note, a file drop zone similar to the one in agreements, has been made available on the contract request details page for the configured associated document. Support has also been added for dynamic associated document rule evaluation for partially created and saved contract requests. 

This file drop functionality available on the associations grid of the agreement details page has been extended to inline associations grid in agreement as well as contract request creation wizard. The inline association functionality now supports dynamic associations for agreements, amendments and contract requests. 

1. Enable the Inline Association flag while associating the association contract type with the parent contract request contract type and publish it. 

2. Click “Agreement Management > Create Request” on the ICI home page. The Create Contract Request page opens. 

3. Select the contract request contract type for which Inline Associations are configured. 

4. Click Next. The Attributes page opens.

5. Update the attribute values.

6. Click Next. The contract request gets auto saved and the Inline Associations page is displayed.

The configured associations are displayed as the different tabs on the Inline Associations page.

Users have the option to drag-and-drop the association files into the “Drop files here…” area provided. In this case, an association gets created with the same name as the file name.

7. Click Add. The Create Association popup is displayed. 

8. Enter the association details.

9. Click Create. The association gets created. Alternatively, click Save and Create New to save the association and to reset the create wizard to default values in the popup window, to create another association.

10. Click the three-dots icon in the "Actions" column to perform Edit, View Record, Disassociate, View Document and View Smart Links actions on the association.

11. Once the required associations are created, click Next to continue with the Contract Request creation wizard. The remaining workflow continues as before.

The created associations are displayed in the left navigation pane, under the Associations tab.

The existing ICI functionalities for associate and inherit, inheritance, auto attachment, event rule evaluation and so on will get executed at partial save (manual/auto) and create/update user actions and will continue to work with inline associations as is. 

If an agreement / contract request that has not yet been saved, it will be auto saved when the user lands on the inline association page. This will enable the user to see list of evaluated associations on the inline association page. 

For an agreement/contract request that has been previously saved, the user will have to explicitly update (and save) the agreement/contract request to see the new changes on the inline page. 

The Dynamic Association Rule evaluation is dependent on technical configuration. 

Related Topics: Agreement Management | Agreements | Contract Type | Saved Searches | | Adding Associations | Obligation Management