Creating a new Stage in UCM is easy to do, and will only take a few clicks to set up.
To begin, go to Company Admin (1), Contract Administration (2), and then Contract Stage Administration (3).
Once inside Stage Administration, you'll see a gird full of all your existing Stages. Above that grid, will be a green + (A), which is where you'll go to create your new Stage.
When you create your new Stage, there are only three items to configure, the name, and two checkboxes.
(A) Name - Maximum of 28 characters. It is also important to know that a Stage can be a part of multiple Workflows, but it can only appear once in a single Workflow. When creating and naming Stages, you may need to create two similarly named stages if it must appear twice in a Workflow. Ex: Legal Review and Final Legal Review may both be needed if your Workflow requires two separate Legal Reviews.
(B) Stage Can Initiate Archive? - Checking this box will allow a Contract to be Archived from this specific stage. For more information on Archiving, click HERE.
(C) Stage Can Be Required for Activities? - This option is rarely used. Checking this box will allow for you to prevent a Workflow from proceeding past your new Stage until a Contract Specific Activity is completed. Approvals are more commonly used as "stopping points" in Workflows.
After you create your new Stage, it will be in your grid. You can edit any existing stages by selecting it's name from the grid. The checkboxes for Archiving and Activities are both able to be configured right from the grid itself, so you don't even need to click the name to edit those options (A).
Now that you've created a Stage, it's time to add that Stage to a Workflow and configure it. See how to do so HERE.