How You Activate and Revise Contract Terms Templates

For a contract terms template to be available for use by contract authors, it must pass an automatic validation check and be approved by the contract terms administrator.

If you need to make changes after the template is approved and in use, you can create a new version by editing the approved template and submitting it for approval. After the revision is approved, it replaces the original automatically.

This topic discusses:

The validation checks for common errors that you must correct
The approvals process
Contract terms statuses, what they mean, and how they affect what actions you can take
The creation of new template versions or revisions

Validation Checks

The application performs the following validation checks for all contract terms templates. You must fix all errors before templates can be sent for approval. Fixing warnings is optional.

The following table lists the validations for terms templates including validations for terms template that contain deliverables.

Validation Check	Type	Action
The template contains incompatible clauses.	Warning	Remove one of the incompatible clauses.
A clause you added to the template is in the draft status.	Error	While you can add draft clauses when creating a contract terms template, these clauses must be approved before the template can be sent for approval. If you create the draft clauses as part of the contract terms template, then these clauses are submitted for approval along with the template.
A clause in the template is in inactive, on hold, or rejected status. If a previous approved version of the clause is available, then this message does not appear. The template continues to use the previously approved version.	Error	You must obtain approval for the clause and resubmit the template for approval.
The template contains more than one alternate clause.	Error	You must remove one of the alternates.
Contract Expert suggested clauses specific to the activated rules associated with the terms template are not marked as conditional clauses on the terms template.	Warning	You must mark these clauses as conditional clauses on the terms template.
Contract Expert suggested clauses specific to the activated rules associated with the terms template are flagged as unconditional clauses on the terms template.	Warning	You must mark these clauses as conditional clauses on the terms template.
The template contains conditional clauses that are not Contract Expert suggested clauses specific to the activated rules associated with the terms template.	Warning	You must either remove these clauses or mark them as unconditional clauses on the terms template.
If the template is a translation of another template, then the template it was translated from must be valid on the date you validate the translation.	Error	Obtain approval of the template you are translating before resubmitting.
Template contains no clauses.	Warning	Clauses are not required in a template.
The requester or the internal and escalation contacts in the deliverable are invalid.	Error	You must enter different requester or contacts. The internal contact and requester must be employees with e-mail addresses to receive notifications.
Supplier / customer contact is invalid.	Error	The supplier or customer must be entered as a contact with an e-mail address.
Deliverable dates are missing.	Error	Enter the missing dates.

Template Approval

After you submit a template for approval and it passes validation, the application sends a notification to the approvers specified in the Oracle BPEL Process Manager notification service process. If you have created clauses as part of the contract terms template, then the clauses are automatically submitted for approval and approved along with the template.

For clauses that you added to the terms template from the Terms Library, terms template approval has no effect on them. You can, however, stop the approval of each of these clauses from the Edit Clause page or from the worklist approval notification.

Stopping Template Approval

If for some reason, after you submit a terms template for approval, you want to withdraw it from approval, you can use the Stop Approval action on the Edit Terms Template page to do so. Stopping terms template approval, automatically stops the approval of clauses that you created or added and submitted for approval with the terms template. The Stop Approval action is not available for such clauses individually on the Edit Clause page.

Stopping the approval of a terms template reverts it to its previous Draft or Revision status and reverts the status of the clauses that you submitted for approval with the terms template to their previous Draft status. For clauses in Pending Approval status that you added to the terms template from the Terms Library, stopping the approval of the terms template has no effect on these clauses. These clauses remain in their Terms Library statuses.

Template Statuses

Contract terms template statuses are set automatically during the template lifecycle.

The following diagram shows the available statuses and the permitted transitions and actions in each stage of the template lifecycle:

When you create a contract terms template it is automatically set to the Draft status.

You can edit and delete templates in this status.
When you submit a draft template for approval and it is successfully validated, it is set to the Pending Approval status. You cannot edit, delete, or enter an end date for templates in this status. The approvers must either approve or reject the template or you can withdraw the terms template from approval.
An approved template is automatically available for use in the business unit where it is created.
You can edit an approved template to create a new version. The edited version is set to the Revision status until it is validated and approved.
If the approvers reject the template revision, you can edit it and resubmit it for approval.
You can place an active template on hold, temporarily removing it from use until the hold is removed. You cannot edit templates in this status.
You can remove an approved template from use permanently by entering an end date. You cannot edit a template that is past its end date. The only available action is to copy it to create a new one. Entering an end date does not change the status of the template even past the end date.

Creating Contract Terms Template Revisions

You can create a revision of a terms template by editing an active template. After the revision is approved, it automatically replaces the current version in the Contract Terms Library. The application does not save previous versions of templates.

If the template is a global template that was adopted by other business units, those business units must copy over the revision. The new template revision appears in the Available for Adoption region of the Terms Library Overview page.