Overview
The contract lifecycle feature uses conditional logic to initiate workflows. Its purpose is to enable you to get a contract to an executed state - or the next required step - as quickly as possible, without forcing you to go through unnecessary steps.
It also features improved approvals guidance and better support for partial execution with ink and DocuSign.
How to progress along the Contract Lifecycle
The contract lifecycle allows you to illustrate and communicate the status of a contract from drafting through to execution.
As the contract progresses through each stage simply click the proceeding icon to shift the contract along the LawVu lifecycle. This enables your team to stay informed as to the phase the contract is in. This also makes it easier for your organization's internal business users to know the current state of play without having to request updates from the legal team continually.
Approval workflows can be attached to any stage and automatically applied to contracts of your choice. You can also implement financial delegation approval flows for contracts that exceed a preset dollar value.
The contract cannot be progressed along the lifecycle until the approval conditions have been met.
If the contract has been waiting on an approver for a long time, you can click on 'send reminders' to trigger a reminder for the approver.
How to Shift back to a Previous Stage
As long as the contract isn't executed or expired, you can change the contract stage by simply clicking the desired stage.
However, if the contract is executed or expired, you can move it back yourself by voiding the contract.
Note that voiding can only be done by the Contract Owner, but anyone should be able to change this and assign themselves. To do this, locate the Contract Owner field from the General Information or Contract details tab and search for your name to allocate yourself as the Contract Owner. You may need to refresh your browser for the ellipsis (three dots) to appear.
To unvoid the contract, simply click on the Void stage to trigger the below window. Unvoiding the contract sends it back to the 'Draft' stage.
If you have a document in there already, do not worry - it won't disappear. You can progress the contract back through the stages and then download it, physically sign it (if needed), and then upload it at the signing stage.
As the contract gets reset back to the "Draft" stage you will need to go back through any approval processes that were set.