During the process of negotiation, you may find a section of text that you would like to mark as smart. You can mark document text as a clause when:

  • You are have a third party offline contract created or imported into the contract record that contains language which should be tagged as clauses.
  • An external party adds language to the contract document that constitutes a clause.

To mark a clause

  1. Open Microsoft Word and launch the X-Author for Contracts Advanced add-in.
  2. Log in to X-Author for Contracts.

  3. In the Contracts pane, go to Work > Clause Library.
  4. Highlight the content of the contract to be marked as a clause.
  5. Search the clause you want to add or select the clause from the available clauses list and click the More icon() next to the clause name.

  6. Click Mark.
    By marking the text as a clause in your contract document, the text adopts the properties of the marked clause. You can even choose to replace the text in the contract with text from a pre-existing clause in your Clause Library. When the contract document is checked in and reconciled to the contract record, information on marked clauses is added to the Contract Clauses related list.

Clauses can only be smart in the context of single generated or offline contract document. You cannot select more than 32000 characters for marking a clause.

To mark a new clause

  1. Open Microsoft Word and launch the X-Author for Contracts Advanced add-in.
  2. Log in to X-Author for Contracts.

  3. In the Contracts pane, go to Work > Clause Library.
  4. Highlight the content of the contract to be marked as a clause and click Mark New Clause in the Clause Library tab.
  5. In the Mark Clause form, specify the following fields for marking the clause. The clause will be automatically marked as a one-off instance of the clause for this contract.

    FieldDescription
    Clause NameEnter a new name for the clause.
    ActionBy default, Inserted is chosen and is Read-Only.
    CategorySelect a category for your clause. 
    Sub CategorySelect a subcategory for your clause. Options in the list will change based on the category you selected. 
    ExceptionSelect a term exception record from the drop-down list to associate with your clause.
    Risk RatingSelect an appropriate risk rating for your clause. Valid values are:
    • Green
    • Red
    • Yellow
    Materially SignificantSelect this check box if you want to make your clause materially significant.
    Clause Text (Selected)This text area shows the selected text which you want to mark as a clause.

    Scroll past the Clause Text to view additional fields and buttons required to mark the clause.

  6. Click Save to apply clause properties to the highlighted content and mark the content as a smart clause. When you check in and reconcile your contract document, the clause will be displayed as inserted in the Contract Clauses related list and is listed in the Document panel under Clauses. Your clause is successfully marked and acquires content control border like the other smart clauses.

  7. After inserting the clause, you can go to Work tab > Doc Clauses to confirm that the clause is now recognized in the document. When you check in the document, any smart clauses can be reconciled to the contract and information of the inserted clause is added to the Contract Clause related list on the contract record.

Behavior and Recommendations

If you mark a table as a clause by selecting the table only, you will see an error message. You are recommended to select some space before and after the table.