When an approval workflow has been applied to any contract stage, the approval conditions must be met before progressing the contract lifecycle.
In this article:
Sending a contract for approval
Approval workflows can be applied automatically at various contract stages based on legal requirements. To learn how to create and apply approval workflows to contracts, take a look at this article: Automated contract approval workflows
Moving the contract stage or clicking on the suggested next step "Seek approval," will start the approval workflow in place. You can continue and notify the approvers or edit them if needed.
Note: You cannot remove a phase marked as "Required" or make changes to phases set as "Locked."
Once a contract is sent for approval, the assigned approvers and their delegates will be notified. The contract stays in the current stage until all approvers have given their approval.
To remind a pending approver, use the "Send reminders" button. If you wish to return to the previous stage, click "Do something else."
You can also manually add approval for individual contracts if needed. To do this, add the approval phase to the current contract stage and ensure that the Approvers being added are already contract members.
Note: If a contract reverts to Draft or any prior stage where the ad hoc approval phase has been added, all manually added approvals will be permanently removed. This happens because these phases are not part of any workflow. If necessary, you will need to re-add the approval phase.
Any changes made to the approval workflow will be recorded on the Approval History tab. Workflow templates will be tagged as "System" users, and any ad-hoc changes made by members, such as adding or removing approvers, will be recorded accordingly.
Approving or declining a contract
As an assigned contract approver, you will become part of the approval process, where you will receive notifications through in-app and email. You can customize these notifications based on your preferences.
To review the contract awaiting approval, simply click on either the "Actions" tab or the notification you've received. You'll then see the option to approve the contract or decline it.
Note: Your assigned delegate will also be able to approve or decline the contract on your behalf.
Clicking on "Approve" will open a modal where you can add a comment if needed.
The approval workflow advances only when the required approvers for that phase have given their approval. Upon the completion of the workflow, all contract members will receive notifications confirming the approval status.
If the contract is not acceptable, you can decline the approval request. You will need to provide a reason when selecting "Decline".
Note: All contract members will be notified of the decline action.
The workflow will highlight that you have declined the contract. The reason for declining will be documented in the approval phase as well as the approval history and activity logs. If there are subsequent approvers, they won't be able to proceed with their approval.
To continue, the decliner will need to change their response from declined to "Approved". The approval workflow can also be restarted by uploading a new contract version or moving to a previous stage and then re-entering the lifecycle stage.
To change your response as a decliner, click on "Change to approve" in the grey banner on the contract preview or record. You will see the same modal to add a comment if needed.
