You now have the ability to assign your Responsible Parties (Owner, Primary, Secondary, Tertiary), to automatically have access to any Contract they are assigned to, regardless of their normal Security Folder or Contract Type permissions, by using Additional Access.
This is an OPTIONAL security feature, that does not need to be used if you do not wish to. By default, this option will be off for all existing systems. Below are instructions for enabling from a system-wide level, and from a per-Contract Type basis. We’ll also cover how to apply these Additional Access settings to all existing Contracts for full system continuity.
As of release, this is currently limited to just the Responsible Parties, but we have plans in the near future to add the ability to assign Named User as well, so you can guarantee a User always has permission to certain Contract Types, regardless of if they are assigned a Role.
Initial Configuration (System-Wide)
While the actual Default Responsible Parties setting are controlled from the Contract Type, you can set a system-wide default for all Contract Types from Object Administration (1). From there, you’ll want to select Object Setup/Maintenance (2), and then for the majority of Users, select Contract Management System from the grid that appears.
If you are an organization that has multiple Objects, you will have to set these defaults for each Object. If you are unsure of what an Object is, you probably don’t have any extra and do not need to worry.
Once you have selected the Object you’ll be configuring the defaults for, go to Default Additional Access Security Settings (3), and select the Roles you would like to grant default access to (4).
The Roles you select here will be applied to all your existing, and any new, Contract Types, however any existing Contract Containers already created in your system will need to be updated to reflect these new settings (instructions included towards the end of this article).
The permissions that these Users will follow are the Read-Write Permissions that you can see over to the left, however, for any of your Read-Only Users, they will NOT be able to edit any Contracts, since Additional Access will never allow a User to do more than their base User Type allows.
If the selection you made here were how you want your entire system to operate, then you can skip the next section of this article and jump right to how to apply these settings to all existing Contract Container in your system. However, if you need to adjust these settings for a few Contract Types, like say NDA’s or BAA’s that maybe shouldn’t have all four defaulted with access, it is very easy to configure.
Contract Type Configuration
After you have set your system-wide defaults, if you go to Company Administration, Contract Administration, down to Contract Type, and then into a specific Type of Contract, you’ll see a new default selection box at the bottom of the page (A).
The default setting here will be what you had just previously configured from the Object settings area, but they can be adjusted from this page.
In the example below, for my NDA Contract Type, I only want my Owner & Primary parties to have access, so I deselected Secondary & Tertiary (B), and saved. Now, any of my NDA’s will NOT automatically grant Secondary & Tertiary access, but it will continue to do so for all other Contract Types.
While the system-wide setting require additional steps to apply the settings to all existing Contracts, if you make a Contract Type specific adjustment, then all existing Contracts of that Type will have their Additional Access updated to reflect the configuration set on the Type.
Updating Existing Contracts
Once you have configured your system-wide settings, those defaults will be applied to all NEW Contracts, but to apply these setting to existing Contracts, you’ll need to follow one of the following options:
Option 1 – Modify Contract
This option will allow for you to immediately begin benefiting from default additional access, without having to wait on a Developer to run a script for you, however, it will require some View creation and using the Modify Contract Action. More information about Contract Actions can be found HERE.
Using the Modify Contract Action, you can either select all your Contracts at once (if you did NOT adjust any Contract Types to have different settings), or, if you made Contract Type changes, you’ll need to run separate Views for each type of Contract you adjusted.
Once you have your View run, your Contracts selected, and you’ve initiated the Modify action from the grid, you can select the Additional Access link from the box that appears. From there, you can set your Roles in the Read-Write box (C) to match your Default or Contract Type settings. You’ll then want to ensure you have Add Users (D) selected from the options below, so that any existing Additional Access that may have been granted in the past will still be kept, while also adding on the selected Roles. Then save (E).
By doing this, you will effectively apply the OPST roles to all your existing Contracts, and all newly created ones moving forward will have the defaults you had previously configured.
Option 2 – Developer Script
If you are not in any rush, and do not want to go through the process above, you can also request that our developers run a script that will apply all your settings to your existing Contracts without you having to do any modifying. The downside here is that it may take a few days for us to get that script run, but if that is not an issue, please include the following information with your request that you submit to [email protected]
Company Name (displays right under the logo in the top left corner of UCM)
Objects that will be updated (even if it will only be Contract Management System)
Contract Container Appearance
Once you have configured your settings, and potentially updated all your existing Contracts, any time you go into a Contract, or create a new one, you should see your Additional Access set similarly to the image below.
Anyone who is assigned to a Role (F) will automatically have access through Additional Access (G), which will show you all of your selected Roles if you click the green link.
You can of course edit or adjust these setting as you deem necessary, but you can now work in UCM with the peace of mind knowing anyone who is assigned a Role, should have access to their Contracts without any manual work needed from Admins or power users.