AA Creation Template is used to create a contract using your company's own paper. The first step is to format your company's standard contract in MS Word so that it can be used as a Creation Template in the Creation Wizard.

Other steps include mapping fields, adding questions, adding restrictions, and activating the template.

  1. Use MS Word's Standard Numbering or Multi-level Numbering feature to tag the paragraphs in the contract, and be sure to include any optional sections or paragraphs. Since the creation template allows sections (paragraphs) to be removed when the user runs the Creation Wizard and answers Administrator-defined questions about the contract, the final document will vary, depending on customer requirements and circumstances.

    Note:

    If your contract does not contain any optional sections, you do not need to use MS Word's Numbering feature. However, it is recommended that you apply the same Word style (e.g., Normal) to the sections (paragraphs) to ensure the font size and type will be consistent in the contract generated by the Creation Wizard.

  2. Standardize the spacing between lines in the Word document by selecting all the clauses in the contract, displaying the Paragraph window, and entering a value in the Before and After fields in the Spacing section. Do not use hard returns to separate paragraphs of text in your formatted document.
  3. Insert merge fields into the Word document for all contract variables that need to be mapped to a field in the Contract Profile or Company Profile, or mapped to a Clause, or Additional Form field. Position your cursor at the first location in your contract where variable information must be provided, and use Word's Merge Field feature to add the merge field to the document. Make sure the name of the merge field is very similar to, or exactly matches, the name of the field in Conga Contracts to ensure you map the field correctly. For example, if you want to add a merge field to capture the state in which a company is located, be sure to enter State/Province as the name of the merge field. The merge field will display as «State/Province» in your Word document.

    Important:

    If you merge to the same field on an additional form, you must give it a unique name each time in the document. As an example, for Hourly Rate you would use the names HourlyRate1 and HourlyRate2. Also, NEVER copy and paste a merge field from one location in the document to another, and then edit the text since this will cause the Creation Wizard to improperly create your contract document. To correctly edit a merge field in a Word document, right click on the field to display a menu, and select Edit Field to display the Field window (shown below).

    • For the 2013 and 2016 versions of MS Word, click the Insert tab, click Quick Parts to display a menu, and select Field. In the Field window (shown below), select Mail Merge in the Categories list, click MergeField in the Field names list box, and then enter the name of the field from the Contract or Company Profile in the Field name text box. If the name of the field contains more than one word, be sure to add an underscore between the words. (Example: Effective_Date).
    • For the 2003, 2007, and 2010 versions of MS Word, click the Insert tab, and select Field in the menu. In the Field window, follow the instructions in the paragraph above to insert a merge field into the document.
  4. Insert merge fields for all clauses, additional fields, and additional form fields that you want to insert into the contract document.

Clauses

In setting up a merge field for a clause, follow the steps outlined in #3 above to display the Field window in Word. In the Field name text box, enter the word Clause, followed by a colon (:), and then enter the name of the clause, making sure to place an underscore between the words if the name of the clause consists of more than one word. For example, to insert a clause called Governing Law that is stored in your Clause Library, enter Clause:Governing_Law in the "Field name" box. In the contract, the merge field will display as <<Clause:Governing_Law.

Additional Fields

In setting up a merge field for an additional field, insert the merge field in the appropriate location in the document and ensure that the name of the merge field exactly matches the name of the additional field in the Company or Contract Profile. For example, if an Administrator has added a "State of Incorporation" field to the Company Profile, and you want to insert this into the body of the contract, add a merge field called State_of_Incorporation. The display in your contract document would be <<State_of_Incorporation.

Additional Forms

In setting up a merge field for a field in an additional form, you need to use the TableStart and TableEnd identifiers since additional forms are stored in a secondary table in Conga Contracts, unlike the fields in the Contract and Company Profiles, which are stored in the Main table. For example, if you want users to insert the Calculated Payment field from an additional form entitled Payment Terms into the contract, you need to insert three merge fields (with no spaces between the three fields) into the appropriate location in the document: first, add TableStart:Payment_Terms, then add Calculated_Payment, and then add TableEnd:Payment_Terms. The display in your contract document would be <<TableStart:Payment_Terms

<<Calculated_Payment

<<TableEnd:Payment_Terms

If you want to add more than one additional form to the document, make sure each merge field set appears on a separate line in your document.

  • If an additional field or an additional form field appears a second time in the contract document, you must append the merge field with a "2." For example, the second occurrence of the State of Incorporation additional field must be entered as <<State_of_Incorporation_2

  • Similarly, the second occurrence of the Calculated Payment field for an additional form must be entered as <<TableStart:Payment_Terms

  • <<Calculated_Payment_2

  • <<TableEnd:Payment_Terms

  • Additional occurrences of a merge field would be appended by a 3, 4, etc.

You can add more than one field from an additional form into a contract document. For example, if you wanted to add both the Calculated Payment and the Payment Start Date fields from the additional form entitled Payment Terms, you would couch the additional form fields inside the TableStart and TableEnd merge fields so that your MS Word document would be formatted as follows: Licensee agrees to make payments in the amount of <<TableStart:Payment_Terms>> <<Calculated_Payment>> beginning on <<Payment_Start_Date>><<TableEnd:Payment_Terms>>. Also, if you have more than one merge field set containing the TableStart and TableEnd identifiers, make sure each merge field set appears on a separate line in your document.

Once you have mapped all the fields in the contract, you are ready to upload the document as a creation template and map the merge fields in the document to Conga Contracts fields.