Contract life cycle

  • Release version: Zurich
  • Updated July 31, 2025
  • 2 minutes to read
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    Summary of Contract life cycle

    The contract life cycle in ServiceNow Zurich Release governs the progression of contracts from creation to closure, controlling field editability and state transitions. This process ensures contracts are managed consistently, reflecting their current status accurately, and automates compliance and renewal actions.

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    Key Features

    • Contract States and Field Editability: Contracts begin in a Draft state, where most fields are editable. Once beyond Draft, key fields such as dates, renewals, extensions, and financial details become read-only. The State and Substate fields are always read-only.
    • Automated Compliance Checks: A nightly scheduled job runs on the Contract [astcontract] table to:
      • Activate contracts when approved and start date is reached.
      • Renew contracts if approved for renewal upon start date.
      • Expire contracts when the end date is reached.
      This job uses condition check definitions to enforce field values and can override parent-child table checks based on a system property.
    • Override Functionality: The system property contractcompliancecheckjob.enableoverride controls whether child table checks override parent table conditions. It is enabled (True) by default but can be disabled if needed.
    • Expense Line Generation: Expense lines are generated only from contracts in Active or Expired states, ensuring financial tracking aligns with contract status.

    Contract States and Substates

    Contracts transition through several states with specific meanings:

    • Draft: Contract details are being entered; approver is specified.
    • Active: Contract is approved and within its effective period.
    • Expired: Contract has reached its end date. Expired contracts may have substates reflecting renewal workflow status:
      • Awaiting Review: Renewal workflow is active, pending approval.
      • Renewal Approved: Renewal approved but not yet effective.
      • None: No active renewal or extension workflow.
    • Canceled: Contract discontinued and inactive.

    Substates provide further granularity on the contract’s approval and renewal process, such as Under Review, Approved, Rejected, Renewal in Process, Renewed, Extension Approved, and Extension Rejected.

    What This Enables You To Do

    • Manage contracts with clear lifecycle stages ensuring data integrity and appropriate user access to fields.
    • Automate contract state transitions and renewals, reducing manual oversight and errors.
    • Leverage compliance checks to enforce contract conditions consistently across parent and child records.
    • Track contract renewal and extension workflows with detailed substates for approval management.
    • Generate expense lines aligned with contract activity for accurate financial reporting.

    From creation until closure, contracts follow a life cycle that determines which fields can be edited.

    When a contract is in Draft state, almost all fields on the contract record can be edited. After a contract moves past the Draft state, certain date, renewal, extension, and financial fields become read-only. The State field and Substate field are read-only.

    The Contract Compliance Checks schedule job runs on the Contract [ast_contract] table automatically each night. For more information about the scheduled job, see Use Condition Check Definitions. The scheduled job performs the following actions:
    • Changes the contract state to Active if the contract is approved and reaches the specified start date.
    • Renews the contract if the contract is approved for renewal and reaches the specified start date.
    • Changes the contract state to Expired if the contract state is Active and reaches the end date.
    The system property contract_compliance_check_job.enable_override enables the Contract Compliance Checks job to override checks in a hierarchy. By default, this system property is set to True. When checks are defined on the same field of the parent and child tables, the Contract Compliance Checks job performs the following:
    • For the records on the parent table, the condition check on the table sets the field with the value specified in the condition.
    • For the records on the child table, the condition check on the child table overrides the parent table condition and sets the field value on the child table accordingly.

    For example, when a check is defined on the Description field of the Contract (parent) and Lease (child) tables, the field on the Lease table is set to the value specified in the child table condition. To disable the contract compliance check override functionality, set the system property contract_compliance_check_job.enable_override to False.

    Expense lines are only generated from contracts that are active or expired.

    Table 1. Contract states
    State Description
    Draft User adds information about the contract and specifies an approver.
    Active Contract was approved and has reached the specified start date.
    Expired Contract reached the specified end date. Expired contracts with an active renewal workflow that are waiting for approval have a substate of Awaiting Review. Expired contracts with an active renewal workflow where the renewal was approved, but the renewal date hasn’t yet passed, have a substate of Renewal Approved. Expired contracts with no active renewal or extension pending workflow have an empty substate.
    Canceled Contract was discontinued and is no longer active.

    In addition to a state, a contract can also have a substate.

    Table 2. Contract substates
    Substate Description
    Awaiting Review Contract is being prepared for review.
    Under Review Contract sent to the approver and the approver is reviewing the contract.
    Approved Contract reviewed and accepted by the approver.
    Rejected Contract reviewed and declined by the approver.
    Renewal Approved Contract renewal approved by the approver.
    Renewal Rejected Contract renewal rejected by the approver.
    Renewal in process Contract renewal is in progress through the contract renewal workflow.
    Renewed Contract renewal is complete through the contract renewal workflow.
    Extension Approved Contract extension approved by the approver.
    Extension Rejected Contract extension rejected by the approver.
    None No substate is specified.