New Features

Following are the new features introduced in this release:

Connection Manager

The Spring 2018 release of X-Author Contracts for Cloud is introducing the Connection Manager feature. You can save your Contract Management instances in Microsoft Word, after changing the corresponding manifest files, using Connection Manager. You can save your connections with the hostname and use them for connecting to Contract Management on subsequent logins.

Document Security

You can now set an agreement document's security at check-in. The Security option on the check-in page provides three security options to choose from Public, Private, and Confidential. By default, the value of Security is set as Private. Based on your organization's requirement, your Administrator can enable or disable the Security option in your org and can define the security options shown in the Security picklist by configuring the corresponding Product Setting in Contract Management. If:

• IsDocumentSecurityEnabled = True, security options are shown
• IsDocumentSecurityEnabled = False, security options are hidden

Lock/ Unlock an Agreement Document

You can Lock a downloaded agreement document using lock icon in X-Author Contracts Work tab. Locking ensures that when you are working on an agreement after checking it out, no one else can edit or check it out. Other users can view and download a locked agreement, but they cannot edit it. The lock screen is controlled by the AutoEnableCheckout product setting, that can be configured in Contract Management by your Administrator. If the value of AutoEnableCheckout is set to True, your document will be automatically locked on opening in X-Author Contracts.

Unprotect Documents

You can now let your end users unprotect the protected documents from the X-Author Contracts tab using their system password. You can configure the access to the Unprotect Document option for a user by configuring action permission in Apttus Intelligent Cloud and assigning it to the user role. You can ensure that only trusted user roles can unprotect an agreement document for changes and you, as an administrator, do not have to maintain several passwords, thus enhancing security. It also minimizes password sharing among the users.

Updatable Fields

Updatable fields are a new type of fields which have content control border like smart fields but are non-editable in a generated agreement document. You can update the value of an updatable field in an agreement document only using Update from CLM button. Updatable Fields overcome the limitation that not all fields can be made smart. Moreover, Updatable fields are not listed in the Doc Fields tab and are not a part of the reconciliation process.

Auto Check-out

You can control whether a document is automatically locked for editing or not when you open a new agreement document using a new Contract Management Product Setting EnableAutoCheckout. You can ensure that if a user only wants to view an agreement document without the intention of editing it, the document is opened but not locked. To enable or disable auto check-out set product setting value described as follows:

• If the value of EnableAutoCheckOut set to True, your agreement document is automatically locked when you open it in X-Author Contracts and all the tabs are enabled. You can start editing it right away.
• If the value of EnableAutoCheckOut set to False, your agreement document is not automatically locked and the Work and Finish tabs in X-Author Contracts pane are disabled for you. To start editing the document you must first lock it using Refresh Lock under Lock Status screen.

Auto Enable PDF Selection and PDF Selection Override for Check-in as Final

You can now enable auto-selection of PDF when checking in a document as final. To enable PDF selection, you must set the value of Product Setting AutoEnablePDFforFinalDocs to True in Contract Management. However, if you need to override this option for certain users, X-Author Contracts has a complementary ability to override PDF selection for documents checked in as final. To do this, you must use a new role-based action permission in CLM, AllowPDFSelectionOverride. This action permission works in conjunction with AutoEnablePDFforFinalDocs Product Setting. To enable or disable PDF selection override, set the values of the Action Permission and the Product Setting as described in the following table:

Show Latest Version of Contract Document Using Action Permissions

You can show only the latest version of an agreement document to certain users by setting the value of ShowLatestVersion action permission as True in Apttus Intelligent Cloud platform. You can set different views of an agreement document on Search Agreements page, for different users. For example, while opening an agreement, if you want to show only the latest version of an agreement document to a sales user, you can achieve that using this setting. This feature helps avoid confusion when there are multiple people belonging to a certain role working simultaneously on a document. For other user roles, all the other version of the documents will be visible. By default, this setting is disabled which means you can see all the versions of an agreement document.

Force Reconciliation

You can use forced reconciliation to ensure that the tracking of the changes made to the document is not missed during the negotiation phase. To enable force reconciliation, you must use a new action permission for CLM entity available in Apttus Intelligent Cloud platform, AllowReconciliationSelectionOverride and set the value of this setting to True. By default, the value of this action permissions is set to False and you'll be able to select or clear Reconcile option during Check-in. This permission works in conjunction with Contract Management Product Setting, AutoEnableReconciliation to handle forced reconciliation in the following manner: 

Create Offline Agreement

Using create offline agreement feature, you can use third-party documents to create a new agreement record and bring it into the Apttus contract repository. Offline agreements are the agreement documents created outside the Azure CRM. Creating an offline agreement creates a new agreement record in Apttus CLM and it can be accessed from Contract Management.

Import Offline Agreement

X-Author Contracts for Cloud is introducing the Import Offline Agreement feature to import third-party documents into the Apttus contract repository and associate it with an existing agreement record. Offline agreements are the agreement documents created outside the Azure CRM. Unlike creating offline agreement, if you import an offline agreement it does not create a new agreement record but, you can access the imported document from the Documents related list of the associated agreement record in Contract Management.

New UI

You can experience the new and reimagined X-Author Contracts for Cloud interface, introduced in this release. The new UI for X-Author Contracts for Cloud is not only more intuitive but also in line with the Apttus branding. The important features and functionalities are more accessible and have reduced click paths for an overall improved experience.