Contract implemenation concerns

[loberle]

Hi All,

So we are still implementing the contract management piece but I am running into some roadblocks.

As of right now, most of my contracts are in the draft state as one I approve them, many of the fields are then locked.

So here are some of my concerns.

1. I would be the person to enter all of the contracts in for company. I am using the Contract Owner as the highlevel person in our organization who would ultimately approve the contract.

The renewal/extension person is our companies SME that would look at the contract to determine if we would need to renew or if we need to change anything about the contract.

According to the wiki, it appears that you would use the contract administrator for this role but they are not really the ones that are administrating the contract. Once I enter this information in and the contract is in the active state, I can no longer edit these fields. Here is where the problem lies, being it IT, people move positions and roles so I will need the ability to be able to update these fields and assign a different person at any given time. How are other people managing this?

2. I will need the ability to track the changes of a contract over time. These fields would include, owner, PO, Invoice, dates and cost. The Contract History only reports the Contract Start,   End Dates and the T&C's. I would want to be able to run a report and see the deltas of these fields. It doesn't appear there is a way to run a report against these fields. Is it better to just enter a new contract instead of renewing and somehow create a link to the old contract?

3. Renewing Contracts do not appear to allow the ability to update the rate cards. What is the best practice to use this?

Any help of someone who implemented contract management with similar issues would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Lisa

[Community Alums]

Hi Lisa,

Here are some thoughts:

1. Are you doing contract approvals in ServiceNow, or are you just letting that person approve after it goes through the approvals process? A couple possible approaches here:
   1. Just leave it in the Draft State and don't use the lifecycle in ServiceNow.
   2. Look to adjust the process for the contract lifecycle to support all your required approvals and process along with modifying what information can be adjusted when the contract is in Active State. Even without any changes, you should be able to adjust the Contract administrator. You would update the Contract Approval workflow for the updates to the process.
2. You could look to turn on Auditing for contracts. I wouldn't expect this to put a lot of burden on your instance, so it should be fine to do this. This does not let you run a report of all changes, but it would allow you to go into a contract record to see these other changes over time.
3. Rate cards would need to be adjusted separately from the renewal.

I hope this helps.

Ben

[loberle]

Hi Ben,

We are not using ServiceNow for contract approvals. We are using it more for a tracking and notification for when contracts are due.

1. If I leave it in draft state, then it doesn't show up in the contract overview section. This overview section is one of the selling points for putting contracts in. This will allow the managers and directors to see what is in their area.

2. Is this possible to turn off the approval workflow and if you do, will it mess up anything down the road?

3. I would want to keep the history of the rate card? If I adjust the dates and the amount then I would lose the previous information right?

Thanks

[Community Alums]

Hi Lisa,

1. You could adjust the reports on the overview to show all contracts, regardless of whether or not they are active. I'm not sure this is the best approach, though. Even with your approvals outside, you would probably better off doing something to allow what you need to be updated. This allows you to keep separate those contracts that you've entered but have not approved and those that are approved and active. This could potential include integration with whatever system you are using to manage your contract approvals.
2. I have not tried this, but I would not recommend this without setting up an alternate process to move the contract from Draft to Active. You could modify this to include the steps you require, though.
3. You could enable auditing on the rate cards so these changes are captured. This isn't perfect because it isn't easy to report on this, but it would get you this information.

Ben