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Obligations Management

Obligation Management plays a critical role in Contract Life Cycle Management (CLM) by ensuring that both parties engaged in a contract fulfill their respective commitments throughout the contract's duration. It involves tracking, monitoring, and managing obligations, ensuring they are met on time and within the agreed-upon conditions.

Conga CLM comes with a set of default obligation records. For more details, see Viewing the Obligations List. Additionally, you can create new obligations to address specific requirements. For more details, see Creating an Obligation. To ensure that obligations are created for contracts and tracked, you need to link obligations with relevant clauses through the Clause Library. For more information, see Associating Obligations with a Clause .

If the clauses linked with obligations are added to a contract template and a contract document is generated using this template, obligations are automatically added to the contract. You can view the obligations created for a contract in its Activity timeline. You can view detailed information about the obligations in the Obligations link for the contract. You can also add new obligations to a contract (without a linkage to any clause).

Conga CLM supports the following features to manage obligations:
  • Viewing the Obligations List
  • Creating an obligation
  • Update an obligation
  • Delete an obligation

Viewing the Obligations List

You have enabled the use-obligation-existing-flows feature flag in your org. If not already done, submit a request to the Conga CloudOps team. Include the feature flag name (use-obligation-existing-flows) and your organization's friendly ID in the request.
The Obligations link in the contract details provides a comprehensive view of all the obligations related to the contract.
  1. Navigate to the contract details page.
  2. Click the Obligations under LINKS.
A list of obligations associated with the contract is displayed, along with an option to create an obligation for the contract.

Creating an Obligation

You can add an obligation at a contract level for several reasons, depending on the nature of the contract. You can associate comments or attachments with an obligation by uploading documents during obligation creation. You can add, edit, or delete obligations to a contract until it is in the Activated status. You cannot perform obligation management actions after activation, expiration, cancellation, or termination of the contract.
Note: A contract administrator can use the Edit Page button in the page header to customize the page layout of the Contract Details page in CX Studio. This allows them to add or remove standard and custom fields. For more information about editing page layouts, see Page Layout Configuration in CX Studio.
  1. Click Obligations in LINKS for the contract.
    A list of obligations created for the contract is displayed.
  2. Click Create New Obligation .
  3. Provide the following information for the obligation:
    • Obligation Name: For example, Payment Obligation, Confidentiality Obligation, Warranty Obligation, etc

    • Obligation Type: Select the type of obligation.

    • Due Date: Select the due date for obligation fulfillment.

      Note: If you have not provided the obligation due date at this time, the system automatically inserts contract end date, if it is available, on saving the obligation. If the contract end date is not available, the obligation due date field is left blank.
    • Accountable Party: Select whether the party responsible for obligation fulfillment is internal or external. Internal accountable party is a person or a department within the organization who is ultimately responsible for fulfilling an internal obligation (e.g., CFO for financial reporting, HR for training). External accountable party is a third-party organization or entity outside of the company that is responsible for fulfilling an external obligation (e.g., supplier for materials, regulatory agency for compliance).

    • Assignee: Select an assignee for the obligation.

      Note: The Assignee list for the sell-side contract obligations consists of internal users. For the buy-side contract obligations, Assignee list consists of external supplier contacts. For more information, see Obligation Assignee and Reviewer
    • Reviewer: Select a review for the obligation.

      Note: The Reviewer list for the sell-side contract obligations consists of contacts. For the buy-side contract obligations, Reviewer list consists of internal system users. For more information, see Obligation Assignee and Reviewer
    • Clause Reference: Select the clause.

    • Priority: Select the priority for the obligation based on the order in which obligations within the contract should be fulfilled.

    • Print on Contract: Enable the toggle button to include this obligation in the contract document.
      Note: The newly added obligation is included in the contract document only when you generate or regenerate the contract document. Before document generation, ensure that required obligation related fields are inserted into the contract template. For more information, see Contract Template Configuration for Obligations
  4. Specify comments for the obligation.
  5. You can upload supporting documents and templates that can be used to fulfill the obligation. For example, for an obligation related to environmental regulations, the environmental agency may need to submit an emission report in a particular format. You can upload such documents to the obligation record. Drag and drop or browse the files to be attached to the obligation.
    Note: You can upload one or more files in .xls, .xlsx, .txt, .doc, .docx, .rtf, or .pdf format. The uploaded file size should not exceed 100 MB.
  6. Click Save.
The obligation is added to the obligation list in the Obligations link. An audit trail is maintained for any operation performed on the obligation.
To edit an obligation, click the Obligation Name link in the list, click Edit and open the Obligations tab. You can upload new attachments or delete existing attachments while editing an obligation.

To delete an obligation, click the kebab menu icon and click Delete.

Contract Template Configuration for Obligations

When you add an obligation to a contract, you can decide whether you want that obligation to be included in the contract or not. To include it in the document, you must enable the Print on Contract toggle button for the obligation.

The obligation-related fields are stored in the Contract Obligation object. The administrator must insert required obligation-related fields from this object in the contract template with the following Insert as a table option. For these fields, select the following options under the Fields tab:
  • Enable the Smart Fields toggle button

  • In the Repeat Table option, add a condition with the parameters:Conditions on Row
    • In the Field list, click Contract Obligation and select Print on Contract.

    • In the Operator list, select Equal To.

    • In the Value list, select True.

For more information, see Inserting Fields in a Template as a Table.

After you have configured the template and enabled the Print to Contract toggle button for the obligations in the contract, you need to generate the contract document. If the contract document was already generated before adding an obligation to the contract, you must regenerate it to include the new obligation.

Obligation Assignee and Reviewer

For obligations, assignees and reviewers play distinct roles, and their identification depends on whether the contract is buy-side or sell-side.

Buy-side contracts: In these types of contracts, the buyer (the party acquiring goods, services, or rights) takes the primary responsibility for ensuring that obligations tied to receiving and paying for products or services are met.

  • Buy-side assignees
    • The buyer typically assigns obligations related to payment, receiving goods/services, or verifying the products/services received.

    • Internal teams like procurement, finance, or legal departments might be the assignees depending on the specific obligation (e.g., payment approval, delivery acceptance).

  • Buy-side reviewers
    • The seller’s performance is often reviewed by the buyer’s designated personnel (e.g., procurement officers, contract managers).
    • Internal reviewers, such as quality assurance teams or legal personnel, ensure that the products/services provided meet the agreed-upon terms.

Sell-side contracts: In sell-side contracts, the seller (the party providing goods, services, or rights) has the responsibility for fulfilling obligations like delivering the promised goods/services, meeting quality standards, and adhering to the timelines.

  • Sell-side assignees
    • The seller is responsible for performing obligations like delivering goods, services, or intellectual property, adhering to quality standards, and fulfilling timelines.

    • Internal teams such as sales, logistics, or production departments would typically act as assignees for fulfilling these obligations.

  • Sell-side reviewers
    • The buyer would act as the reviewer, ensuring that the seller’s performance meets the specified terms and standards (e.g., ensuring timely delivery, verifying product quality).
    • In certain cases, third-party inspection or auditing might be part of the review process to confirm that the contract obligations are met.

Post-activation Contract Events Impact on Obligations

Contract Amendment

When an activated contract is amended, all the active obligations that have a Pending Fulfillment or Pending Review fulfillment status are copied to the amended contract with the same details as the source contract and can be viewed in the contract's Obligations tab.
Note: Only the obligations records, not the fulfillment records are copied from the source contract to the amended contract.

In the amended contract, you can add, edit, or delete obligations (except those copied from the source contract). You can also enable or disable the Active toggle button for the obligations copied from the source contract to the amended contract, as required. After contract activation, you cannot create, edit, or delete obligations.

When you activate the amended contract, obligation fulfillment records are created for all the active obligations existing in the contract's Obligations tab. For more information, see Obligation Fulfillment.

Contract Renewal and Contract Cloning

When a contract is renewed, all the active obligations, irrespective of fulfillment status, are copied to the renewed contract with the same details as the source contract and can be viewed in the contract's Obligations tab.
Note: Only the obligations records, not the fulfillment records are copied from the source contract to the amended contract.

In the renewed contract, you can add, edit, or delete obligations. After contract activation, you cannot create, edit, or delete obligations.

When you activate the renewed contract, obligation fulfillment records are created for all the active obligations existing in the contract's Obligations tab. For more information, see Obligation Fulfillment.
Note: The impact of cloning a contract on obligations is also same as that of renewing a contract.