Contract Types

A contract type is a category your contract belongs to. The contract type selected decides the nature of the contract. For example, contract type determines whether a contract is a project contract, purchasing contract, or simple nondisclosure or employment agreement.

The contract type specifies what kind of information you can enter and what contract lines, parties, and party contacts are allowed.

The contract type also specifies whether an electronic signature is required for contract acceptance and activation. If required, then you need to use the standard email format to notify the signers. In turn, the requirement for electronic signature means that you must designate contacts as signers on the contract. It also means that additional statuses and contract header actions are available.

This topic provides an overview of the superset of contract type setups for a broad range of contracts. When setting up individual contract types, only a subset of the fields listed here are visible. For example, the project billing option entries are visible only in contract types with a sell-intent, and the notifications fields appear only for contract types with a buy-intent.

Create contract types by selecting the Manage Contract Types task from the Setup and Maintenance work area as part of the Enterprise Contracts offering in the Enterprise Contracts Base functional area. You can also create contract types in the Contracts work area by selecting Contract Types in the Setup task heading. In each contract type you can:

• Specify document numbering sequences for the category of global, ledger, legal entity or business unit level to enable automatic contract numbering on contracts.

• Specify if the contract includes lines and what can be entered into them.

• Specify if external item masters can be referenced.

• Make it mandatory to manually capture customer acceptance after internal contract approval.

• If electronic acceptance is required, enable the contract for electronic signature integration.

• Specify what primary and secondary parties can be entered during contract creation.

• Specify if one or more contacts on the contract must be designated as signers for electronic signature acceptance.

• Specify the layout templates that will be used for printing the contract and the contract terms.

• Specify if and when the contract owner is to be notified before the contract expires.

• Specify the billing options for project contracts.

• Enable the capture of contract risks.

• Enable the ability to relate a contract to other contracts.

• Permit the authoring of contract terms using the Contract Terms Library.

Note: Contract renewal functionality supports Service contracts and Repository contracts (buy or sell contract with no lines).

Common Contract Type Entries

This table describes common contract type entries:

Field or Option	Description
Class	Indicates the category of the contract you're authoring. The class assigned to a contract type controls whether contract lines are allowed, and what types, on a contract. Enterprise Contract: Used for authoring both buy and sell contracts where you're buying or selling items and services now. Examples of contracts of this class include contract purchase agreements, project contracts, and repository contracts. Agreement: Used for authoring a sell intent contract to create a sales agreement. Purchase Agreement: Used for negotiating a future purchase of goods and services. Partner Agreement: Used exclusively for Oracle Fusion Partner Management. You can't change the class after the contract type is created.
Set	Determines the data security for contracts of this type.
Name	The name of the contract type that you select when authoring contracts. We recommend you to avoid using special characters when entering the contract type name. For example, & and @.
Description	Description that you can see when managing contract types.
Allow lines	Selecting this option makes it possible for you to specify what line types can be added to the contract. You can't change the setting after the contract type is created.
Line Class	This applies only to the Enterprise Contract class and can be set to: Project, Service, Warranty. It controls the line types you can assign to a contract type. Each type of contract determines the line type that's associated with it. For example, you can only associate subscription and coverage line types to a contract type with the Line Class set to "Service", and warranty line type to a contract type with the Line Class set to "Warranty"..
Use external item master	Selecting this option lets you reference items from an external item source master. This option is available only for sell intent contracts if you selected the available Allow lines option.
Pricing Integration	Controls how sales agreements are priced and can be selected for contract types assigned to the class "Agreement". You can set the integration to use pricing functionality available within Oracle Order Management or Oracle CX Sales. Only contracts using Oracle Order Management pricing integration will be available when creating a sales order in Order Management.
Allow pricing during billing	Allows pricing of subscription services during contract billing rather than contract authoring. This attribute can be set when the class is Enterprise Contracts and the Line Class is Service.
Enable Automatic Numbering	Enables automatic numbering of contract lines during contract authoring. For more information, see the Define Document Sequences topic.
Requires Signature	Determines if customer signature is required for contract acceptance before this type of contract can become active. After approval, the contract is set to the Pending Signature status and requires you or the signer to enter the date of customer approval to make the contract active. If you plan to use the Enable Electronic Signature option, you can disable this feature at the individual contract level. Even if you disable this option at the contract level, the contract will still require manual signature.
Enable Electronic Signature	Determines if designated signers must sign the contract before the contract becomes active. In this case, after approval, the contract moves to the Pending Signature status, and when the contract is sent for signature, the contract moves to the Sent for Signature status.
Contract Numbering Method, Contract Numbering Level, and Contract Sequence Category	Specifies if you must enter the contract number manually or if it's generated automatically based on the numbering level and the document sequence category that you specify.
Intent	Contracts can have either a sell intent (project contracts and partner agreements) or buy intent (purchase contracts). You can't change the intent after the contract type is created.
Buyer Role	The party role of the recipient of the goods and services in the contract. For a sales or a project contract, this is the role you set up for the customer. For a purchasing contract, it's the role you set up for the business units in your organization. You can't edit the entry in this field after contract type creation. For sell-side contracts, the source of party role can be Customer, Internal Party or All Eligible Customers.
Seller Role	The party role of the party delivering the goods and services covered by the contract. For a sales or a project contract, this is the role you set up for one of the internal business units. For a purchasing contract, it's the role you set up for the supplier. You can't edit this field after contract type creation.
Contract Owner Role	The contact role assigned to the owner of the contract. Contract ownership is automatically assigned to the employee who creates the contract. The owner is automatically assigned the role you specify here.
Buyer Contact Role	The role you specify in this field specifies the role of the buyer that will be copied from the contract header to the contract fulfillment lines created for contract lines. This option is available for purchase contracts only:
Requester Contact Role	In purchase contracts only: The role of employee who will be used as the creator of a requisition in Oracle Fusion Purchasing.
Contract Layout Template	The Oracle Analytics Publisher template that's used to print the entire contract. This option isn't available if you enabled Use external item master.
Terms Layout Template	The Oracle Analytics Publisher template used to print the contract terms. This option isn't available if you enabled Use external item master.
Notify Before Expiration, Days to Expiration, and Contact Role to be Notified	Selecting this option sends a notification before contract expiration to the individual with the role specified in the Contact Role to Be Notified. The number of days is specified the Days to Expiration field. These options aren't available if you enabled Use external item master. For the notifications to appear, the process "Send Contract Expiration Notifications" must be running. When you run Send Contract Expiration Notifications, three people receive the expiration notification: The person who submits the process The contract owner of the contract that's expiring The contract contact who has the role you have selected in the Contract Type Expiry notification setup

Line Types

You can enter the line types permitted by the class you selected for the contract type and only if you selected the Allow Lines option during the contract type creation.

This table describes the possible line types:

Line Type	Description	Line Type Source
Free-form	Enables entry of items not tracked in inventory for purchasing. You can create master agreements in the purchasing application from lines of this type.	Free-form, buy agreement
Free-form	Enables entry of items not tracked in inventory for purchasing. You can create purchase orders in the purchasing application from lines of this type.	Free-form, buy
Item	Enables entry of inventory items for purchasing. You can create master agreements in the purchasing application from lines of this type.	Item, buy agreement
Item	Enables entry of inventory items for purchasing. You can create purchase orders in the purchasing application from lines of this type.	Item, buy
Free-form, project	Enables entry of items not tracked in inventory and displays project-related tabs and fields in a contract. You can associate and bill the line to a project in Oracle Fusion Projects.	Free-form, project-based, sell
Item, project	Enables entry of inventory items and displays project-related tabs and fields in a contract. You can associate and bill the line to a project in Oracle Fusion Projects.	Item, project-based, sell
Subscription	Enables the sale of subscription items that are tracked in inventory. These are the sale of recurrent items or services over a period of time.	Subscription, sell
Coverage	Enables the coverage of covered assets within a line in a service contract.	Coverage, sell
Warranty	Enables entry of items tracked in the inventory. It includes the sale of included and extended services in the contract.	Warranty
Product	Enables entry of a line representing the negotiated terms for future sale of an item.	Product, sell agreement, standalone
Product	Enables entry of a line representing the negotiated terms for future sale of an item.	Product, sell agreement, integrated
Group	Enables entry of a line representing the negotiated terms for future sale of a product group.	Group, sell agreement

If you enable Use external item master when creating a contract type, you can create only the line types, as listed in this table:

Line Type	Description	Line Type Source
Bundle	This line type applies to sell contracts and describes the sale of bundled items tracked in inventory. Bundles can include other bundles or items.	Bundle, sell

Additional Party Roles

You can add party roles that can be added to a contract in addition to the primary parties specified in the Buyer Role and Seller Role fields. You can add multiple additional parties with the same role to the contract.

Project Billing Options

For contract types created for projects (sales-intent contract types of class Enterprise Contract and at least one project line type), you can set the project billing options, as described in this table:

Option	Description
Intercompany	Enables project billing between internal organizations.
Interproject	Enables billing to other projects.
Enable Billing Controls and Billing Limit Type	Enables billing controls for each contract line, making it possible for you to specify a hard limit or a soft limit as the Billing Limit Type. A soft limit warns you if the billing limit is reached. A hard limit prevents you from billing above the limit.

Enabling Contract Fulfillment Notifications for Purchase Contracts

For purchase contracts, you can use the Notifications tab to specify what contract fulfillment notifications will be sent to what contact role. Available notifications are slightly different for each type of contract:

Note: For the notifications to appear, the process "Send Contract Fulfillment Notifications" must be running.

For contracts with purchase order fulfillment lines, you can notify contacts with a specific role:

• A specified number of days before or after the fulfillment due date

• When a purchase order is created from a fulfillment line

• When a purchase order can't be created from a fulfillment line

• When a fulfillment line is placed on hold

• When purchasing activity is complete on a fulfillment

For contracts with blanket purchase agreement fulfillment lines or contract purchase agreement fulfillment lines, you can notify:

• When an agreement is created from a fulfillment line

• When an agreement can't be created from a fulfillment line

• When purchasing activity is complete on a fulfillment

• When an agreement is placed on hold

• A specified number of days before or after the agreement end date

Enabling Contract Terms Authoring and Other Advanced Options

If you don't enable Use external item master, you can enable contract terms authoring and other advanced contract terms authoring options on the Advanced Authoring Options tab.

Note: If you enable Use external item master, the Advanced Authoring Options tab isn't available but Related Contracts option is automatically enabled.

The advanced authoring options are described in this table:

Option	Description
Enable Terms Authoring	Displays the Contract Terms tab in contracts and enables contract terms authoring using contract terms templates from the Contract Terms Library. You must set up the content of the library from the Terms Library work area before you can take advantage of this feature. Note: When this option is disabled, you can attach contract terms along with other supporting documents.
Enable Risk Management	Enables the entry of contract risks. You must set up contract risks selecting the Manage Contracts Risks task in Oracle Fusion Functional Setup Manager.
Enable Related Contracts	Makes it possible for you to relate contracts to each other.

Enabling Customer E-Signature

For a contract created from a contract type enabled for electronic signature, the contract must be signed by all designated signers on the contract before the contract can become active. Before enabling a contract type for electronic signature, you must have used the Manage Electronic Signature setup task to set up contract user accounts with the electronic signature solution provider.

You can then select the predefined terms layout template appended with signature tags as the default template for the contract type and enable the contract for signature. In the e-Signature tab, you can further enable the contract type for electronic signature and optionally create the standard email to be used when sending the contract document to signers and recipients during the integrated electronic signature process.

On the contract that you create from a contract type enabled for electronic signature, you must designate one or more contacts on the contract as signers. Only the user with edit privileges on the contract can manage the signature process. This includes sending the contract for signature, editing the contract and sending it out again, withdrawing the contract from the signature process, and canceling the contract sent for signature.

Note: For an explanation of how to set up e-signature, see the implementation guide topic Set Up Electronic Signature.