Contract Document Versioning enhances existing version control by introducing a solution framework of document versioning at the Agreement record level. Without Contract Document Versioning, all agreement documents are included in the Notes & Attachments related list, requiring that the agreement owner or other parties determine the proper document version or versions for review, signature, finalization and activation. Document Versioning adds two new child objects with relationships to the Agreement object: Document Version (child object to Agreement) and Document Version Detail (child object to Document Version).

When Document Versioning is enabled for your organization, not every document is attached to an agreement's Notes & Attachments Related List. Instead, each major version of a document is populated in the Document Versions Related list, with individual version information tracked using Document Version Details.

To take advantage of the full functionality of Contract Document Versioning, your organization should also be using X-Author for Contracts.

Restriction

Contract document versioning is not supported for the documents uploaded with Intelligent Import.
Clause versioning is not supported for wet signatures.

About Document Versions Concepts

Contract Document Versioning divides the version of an Agreement document into three parts: Major, Minor and Revision. Each version of an agreement document is represented as a period-delimited numeric value in the Document Version Details object (e.g., "1.0.0"). As different users perform various actions on the document, version values are numerically incremented. The following table describes each version type represented by the version value and how it is created.

Version Type

Document Action

User Role

Example Value

Major

A major version type is created every time a user:

Generates a document.
Regenerates a document.
Creates an Offline document.
Imports an Offline document.
Generates a supporting document.
Checks in a Clean document or a document without Redlines.
Checks in a document as Final.

A MAJOR version can be either a new document instance or an incremented version of a pre-existing document. For further explanation, see New Document Versus Incremented Version.

Contract Requestor / Owner

1.0.0

2.0.0

3.0.0

Minor (Negotiator)

A minor version is created every time a Negotiator makes changes to the document and checks it in using X-Author for Contracts with the following exceptions:

The Negotiator checks in the document as Clean or Final (creates a MAJOR version).
The Negotiator checks in a document on behalf of a Reviewer (creates a REVISION–see below).

Negotiator

1.1.0

2.1.0

1.2.0

Revision (Reviewer)

A revision is created every time a document is returned by a reviewer to the Negotiator. The document is either returned by the reviewer as an email attachment and checked in using the X-Author Contracts for Outlook plug-in, or checked in on their behalf by the Negotiator (for both internal and external reviewers) using X-Author Contracts for Word. For more information on Send for Review using X-Author, see the X-Author Contracts documentation.

Reviewer

1.0.1

2.0.2

New Document versus Incremented Version

To understand versioning, it is important to recognize the difference between a MAJOR document (a new Document Versions record) and a new MAJOR document version (a new Document Version details record). For generated documents, template use defines the document being versioned–that is, when a document is generated or regenerated using a different template, a new MAJOR document is created. Likewise, when an offline document is created or imported, a UUID (Universally Unique Identifier) is assigned to that document. Each newly created or imported offline document is a new MAJOR document.

Alternatively, when an agreement document is Regenerated using the same template, a new MAJOR document version is created, meaning the MAJOR value of the document is incremented (e.g., 1.0.0 to 2.0.0) instead of a new document instance/record being created. The same is true when a generated or offline agreement is checked in as final, or when a document is checked in as clean (without redlines). The following example of the Document Versions related list shows 3 documents: generated from a template, imported from offline, regenerated from a different template. Each is a new MAJOR document (with its own versions).

Viewing Document Versions on an Agreement Record

You can view a snapshot of each agreement document on the Document Versions Related List on the Agreement record. Each Document Versions record allows you to drill down into Document Version Details, which contains information and the drafts of each individual version of the agreement document up to its current stage in the lifecycle. The Document Versions Related list displays information for the primary agreement document and an imported offline agreement.

Click on the link under Name to View all document version details for the chosen agreement document.
Click on the link under Template to View Template record details.
Click on the link under Latest Version Detail to View document version details for the latest version of the agreement document.

Note

The name of each entry under Document Versions is based on the naming convention for Document Versions decided by your administrator. For more information, see Enabling Contract Document Versioning.

Viewing Document Version Details

You can use Document Version Details to view all versions of a specific agreement document. Versions in the table are listed in ascending order from oldest to newest version and break down each version value as Major, Minor or Revision. You can also see the action taken to create a specific version of the Agreement document. In the example below, the user has drilled down into the Document Version Details for the primary agreement document (click on the image to enlarge the view).

In this example, the following actions created the listed document versions:

The agreement requestor Generated the original version (version 1.0.0).
The negotiator Checked Out the generated version (remember, this does not create a version) and Checked In a new version after some changes (version 1.1.0).
The negotiator Checked Out the checked-in version, made additional changes, and Checked In a new version (version 1.2.0).
The contract owner Regenerated the agreement document (version 2.0.0).

To Download a Specific Version of the Agreement Document

Click the View link in the appropriate row. The agreement document is downloaded to your local drive.

Checking in the Final Version

When the contract owner or negotiator checks in the final version of an agreement document using X-Author and selects "Create PDF attachment," two actions occur on the Agreement record:

A MAJOR version of the agreement is added to Document Version details for that document.
The FINAL PDF agreement document version is added to the Notes & Attachments related list.

The final version of the agreement document and any additional final documents can be Sent for Review or Sent for Signatures.

Document Versions and Template Versioning

If your org has Template Versioning enabled, you can also view the version of the Template used to generate the document.

The Template Version field must be added to the Document Version Detail layout in order to view template version information. Follow the standard Salesforce process for adding fields to the layout.

To view the template version used to generate the document:

Go to the Agreement Record.
Under Document Versions, click on the Document Versions Name.
Under Document Version Details, click on the version link (e.g., "1.0.0"). The Template version is displayed in the Template Version field.