New Features

The following features are new in this release. 

Adding Smart Property to a Clause in a Template

With X-Author Contracts May 2015, a clause may be provided a smartness property. This can be done through either the properties in the Control Panel or using a right-click on the clause in the Control Panel.

Refreshing Clauses in an Agreement Template

Refresh Clauses functionality allows to you keep your agreement template up to date. If the agreement contains clauses, and one clause has been changed but not published, this functionality can update the clause in the agreement template in context.

Smart Clauses in a Contract Document

Smart clauses, like smart fields, are parts of a contract that can be reconciled between versions of an agreement and noted in the agreement record. This can be used during negotiations when clauses are redlined. Clauses that have been changed will be reconciled during Preview Reconcile and Check-in Reconciliation. Clauses can only be smart in the context of a generated contract document.

Marking Agreement Documents as Private

X-Author Contracts allows you to mark documents as private whenever you take one of the following actions:

• Check-In an agreement document
• Create Offline Agreement
• Import Offline Agreement 

Marking a document as private is a feature that must be extended by custom implementations to have any practical impact on the security of your agreement documents.
When you mark a document as private it sets the Is Private field for a specific record/action (Check In or Import Offline Agreement) of the Merge Event object to true. You can then use this flag to create custom triggers on the Agreement record for controlling permissions to your documents. You are encouraged to work with Apttus Professional Services to develop a solution for your private documents.

Enhancements

The following section describes existing features that are changed (or are no longer supported) in this release.

UI Enhancements for Inserting Fields into a Template

When you are navigating through a complex hierarchy of objects and fields within the Insert Fields window, there are now breadcrumbs at the top of the window that enable you to quickly verify that you are in the correct place within the object hierarchy.

Mark Clause Menu in X-Author Templates

Mark Clause Menu in X-Author Templates  Simply by highlighting the desired text within a checked-out Template, selecting the Mark Clause menu from the X-Author Templates ribbon tab, and then filling in the appropriate clause details, you can mark a text as smart.
The difference between the February 2015 and May 2015 release is that in the February release, you could mark a clause in an agreement document and not in a template. Also, there was no option to unmark an already marked clause in a template. Thus, from May 2015 onwards, you could mark and unmark a clause in a template as well as in an agreement document.

Dynamic Segments & Document Assembly for Templates

Dynamic Segments has become its own menu in the X-Author Templates ribbon. This feature allows you to use the Dynamic Document Assembly feature. In the February 2015 release, the ribbon name was Insert Dynamic Section and with May 2015 release, it is named Insert Dynamic Segment. The functionality remains the same.

Set Segment Menu in X-Author Templates

Set Segment allows the user to either set a segment conditional, style or both. This includes conditionals from the expression builder for conditionals. This also includes built-in Microsoft styles and custom styles.
The difference between the February 2015 and May 2015 release is as follows.

• The February 2015 release had the ribbon name Make Segment with 3 drop-down menus to make a segment as Conditional, Regular and Dynamic.
• The May 2015 release has the name Set Segment and allows you to make a segment as Conditional and apply a Style to the selected content.

Clause Control Panel Actions

X-Author Contracts also enables you to reject clause changes from the Control Panel. From the same Control Panel, do a right-click, and you can mark a clause for deletion.
The difference between the February 2015 release and the May 2015 release is that with February 2015, you could only view the smart fields in the Control Panel along with its previous values, whereas in the May 2015 release, you can view the smart fields, smart clauses, the clauses whose content has been changed and the clauses which have been marked for deletion.

Preview Reconciliation Menu

As contract administrators, you can preview clause reconciliation for contracts. In X-Author Contracts May 2015, you can fully preview reconciliation of clauses within an Agreement document's clauses to the current accepted Agreement document's contents. By this, you can have a full understanding of what is going on during the negotiation process.
The February 2015 release provided the options to reconcile only the smart fields at Preview Reconcile and Check-In actions whereas the May 2015 release allows you to reconcile the smart fields, smart clauses and also review the term exception approvals associated with any clause.

Mark Clause Menu Actions and Promote Clauses

The February 2015 release allowed to only mark clauses in an agreement document, whereas the May 2015 release enables you to mark a clause in a template, in an agreement document and promote the clause to the Playbook. With May 2015 release, you can also decide whether to replace the selected content of the clause with the content of the clause from the Playbook or keep the clause content unchanged. You can also provide smartness property to a marked clause with the May 2015 release.