To work with any version of an agreement document associated with an agreement record in Conga CLM, you must open it directly in X-Author for Contracts. There are two common ways for you to open a document, depending on how you are accessing the document itself. You can open your DOC or DOCX agreement document using one of the following methods:

  • Search and open the document in X-Author for Contracts
  • Download the document from Conga CLM and open it using X-Author for Contracts.

After opening a document, only one user can work on the document at a time.

If you are using X-Author for Contracts on MacBook Air, you might see an error message related to “Add-in memory usage” when you work with a document of size 2 MB or more. This is due to a limitation of Microsoft Word. You can continue working after closing this warning message. However, to avoid high memory usage-related issues, you are recommended to close any unused applications on your system while working with X-Author for Contracts.

To open or open and update an agreement document 

  1. Open Microsoft Word and launch the add-in.

  2. Log in to X-Author for Contracts.

  3. In the Contracts pane, go to Start tab > Search > Search Agreements. It displays all the agreements ordered by modified date. To view the complete agreement name, either hover the mouse over the agreement name or expand the X-Author pane.

    If you have already downloaded the document from another location, open the document in Word. The document is automatically locked (You'll see a message saying 'Document is locked by you'). If the document is already opened by another user, you cannot work with it until it is checked in.

    At most 50 agreements are displayed in one instance in the Contracts pane. When you search agreements using filters, 20 agreements are displayed in one instance based on the search results and if you scroll further, 20 more agreements are displayed.

  4. Enter the agreement name or number as the search keyword and click the Search icon ().

  5. From the search results, click the Expand icon () of the agreement you want to download. In the expanded description, click Documents. This opens the Agreement Details page that lists all the versions of the document. To view the complete document name, expand the X-Author pane. 

    • If there are no documents available in the agreement, then the Documents button is disabled. If you hover over the Documents button, there will be a message displayed indicating " No documents are available for this agreement". 
    • You can filter documents to sort by Last Modified or Version. 

  6. To open an agreement document version, click the More button () adjacent to the version and click Open. The document is opened in a new Microsoft Word instance. The document is automatically opened and locked by you (You'll see a message saying 'Document is locked by you'). This means that your agreement is opened.

  7. To open and update an agreement document version, click More button adjacent to the version and click Open and Update. The selected document is opened in a new Microsoft Word instance. 

  8. You'll get a message saying "Document is locked by you" and the X-Author Contracts pane directly opens the Update from CLM page. This page lists all Smart and ReadOnly fields with current values in Conga CLM. For more information, see Updating Fields from Conga CLM.

The admin can hide the Open and Update option for individual user profiles by disabling the custom permission setting for specific user profiles. For more information, see Custom Permissions in CLM for Administrators.

When you use X-Author for Contracts to open agreement documents that contain swapped alternate clauses published with Online Contract Collaboration (OCC), the following conditions apply: 

  • When you open an older version of the agreement document in Pending Approval status, a message is displayed saying that you can make changes only to the latest version of the agreement document. The document opens in read-only mode, and the Work and Finish tabs are disabled. 
  • When you open the latest version of the agreement document in Pending Approval status, a message is displayed saying that the document contains clauses that are pending approval and editing will be restricted.
    • The swapped clause is displayed under the Doc Clauses tab, but cannot be edited. The remaining standard clauses available in the document are editable.
    • While you check in for review, a message is displayed saying that review is restricted as the agreement contains clauses under Pending Approval. 

Behavior and Limitations

  • X-Author for Contracts cannot open agreement documents containing Microsoft Word 3D shapes.
  • Downloading and opening a Conga CLM agreement document and converting it to X-Author for Contracts compatibility produces a converted document name that is not identical to the original document name.
  • X-Author for Contracts shows a warning message when you open an agreement document containing date fields generated from an X-Author for Contracts 1.0 agreement template. Click Ok to continue. Date fields in the agreement document do not have a date picker, but can be edited and will retain properties.