Contract Document Versioning
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:
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:
| 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.
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
- Under Document Version Details, click on the version
link (e.g., "1.0.0"). The Template version is displayed in the Template
Version field.
Searching and Viewing Version-Aware Documents
The contract negotiation process for agreements often involves multiple iterations of agreement documents for a particular record: primary agreement documents, third-party paper, addendums and schedules and any number of other versioned documents. As a result, it can sometimes be difficult task to find the right document to work with. Document Finder extends Contract Document Versioning by providing a Visualforce page on the Agreement record to permit Contract Management users to use filters and tags to quickly search for and view version-aware agreement documents.
Use Document Finder to search for version-aware agreement documents by:
- Document name
- Keywords/tags defined at document check-in
- All Versions or the Most Recent Version
- Document State: All, Final, Draft, Clean or Redlines (Negotiator or Reviewer version)
- Document Owner: All or specific user name
Prerequisites
Before you can use the full features of Document Finder, the following prerequisites must be satisfied:
- Contract Document Versioning must be enabled.
- Document Finder must be added to the Agreement record layout and the Document Finder Visualforce Page must be added to user profiles.
- One or more version-aware agreement documents must be attached to the record.
Refer to the table in the following section for guidance on which filters are available only with version-aware documents.
Using Document Finder
To begin using Document Finder, open an agreement record with one or more version-aware documents and scroll to the section containing Document Finder.
By default, all version-aware documents you have access to are listed in Document Finder.
Searching for Documents by Document Name or Keywords
To search for documents by document name or keywords/tags:
- Enter a name or keyword into the Document Finder search box. (Note: If there a
predefined tags set by the Default Document Tags property, or from previous
check-ins of other agreement documents, they will be displayed in a
drop-down).
- Press Enter or type a comma (,) at the end of each name
or tag you enter. You can enter any number of values. The list of documents
updates as you enter each tag.
- After you enter a name or a tag, click on the 'X' in the tag (
) to remove it from your search.
This updates the document list to reflect only the current keywords/tags.
Refine Your Search
If necessary, you can refine your search in Document Finder by adding additional filters to your search. Consult the following table for a list of these filters and how to define them. Some filters are only available for Version-Aware records.
|
Document Filter |
Version-Aware Required |
Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Version |
Yes |
Choose from All Versions to list all versions of all agreement documents which match the current search configuration, or Most Recent Version to constrain the current list to only the most recent versions. |
|
Document State |
Yes |
Choose the Document State to list only document versions matching the selected Document State for the current configuration: All Document States, Final, Clean, Draft, or Redlines. |
|
Document Owner (User) |
No |
Choose a User type from the drop-down menu and use the lookup to search for and choose a user to constrain the list of documents to only documents owned by the chosen user. You can also directly type the name of the user and click outside the provided field. |
