🛠 Create Your Own - Touchless™ NDA Workflow

  Estimated Read Time: 10 Minutes

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Sections in this article:

• Introduction
  • Workflow Diagram
• Mandatory Configuration
  • Add the Template
  • Add the Contract Template
  • Add the Template to the Workflow
  • Set the AutoAction Values
• Additional Configuration
  • Add Personalised Links
  • Add Your Company Name to the Form

• • Amend the Internal Contract Negotiator
  • Configure External-Only Signatures
  • Remove Option to Propose Changes
  • Allow Vendors to Reject During Negotiations
  • Enable Online Document Editing

• • Connect a Vendor Onboarding Process
• Additional Setup Outside the Workflow
  • Configure Signatories
• Getting Started
• Additional Reading

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Introduction

For an introduction to this feature, see the Gatekeeper Touchless Contracts™ webinar.

This workflow is designed to remove the administrative burden of adding vendors to Gatekeeper by:

• Enabling vendors to input their own information
• Leveraging AI Autobuild to pre-populate key vendor metadata
• Supporting the automatic creation and signing of a new contract

This workflow saves vendors time filling out forms, and speeds up the start of new partnerships. It also automatically generates an initial contract document, ensuring that before any discussions or negotiations, the vendor has already reviewed and accepted your standard terms.

Watch the video below for a demonstration of the process:

Workflow Diagram

🛠 Mandatory Configuration 🛠

The steps in this section outline the essential setup required to make your workflow fully functional:

• Add the Touchless NDA Request workflow template to your tenant as the starting point for the build
• Create the Word template document that Gatekeeper will use to generate the NDA draft and a PDF version so vendors can preview the contract
• Specify which template the AutoCreate NDA Draft phase should use to generate the draft
• Set defaults for the fields Gatekeeper needs to create a valid contract record

The Additional Configuration section covers optional additions that expand the scope of your process or align the workflow with your organisation's unique policies and procedures.

Add the Template

To get started, you'll need to add the template workflow:

1. From the navigation menu, click Workflows.
2. Click Add, then select Workflow Template.
3. Click Create on the Touchless NDA Request template.
   
4. Amend the title if needed, for example if you refer to these as CDAs or are using the workflow for a different contract type, then click Create.

Add the Contract Template

Next, you'll need to add the MS Word template that will be used to generate contract drafts in the workflow.

1. From the navigation menu, expand Settings, then click Configuration.
2. Click eNegotiate Contract Templates, then click Add MS Word Template.
3. Click Handlebar Instructions to view a description of the fields that can be automatically inserted into your contract documents by Gatekeeper.
4. After populating your contract document in MS Word, upload it to Gatekeeper to create the new template.
5. Enter a Title, Contract Type, and set the Status to Live to make the template available for use in your workflow.
6. To enable the contract preview within the Touchless Form, upload a PDF document. This also allows vendor users the option to suggest changes or proceed to eSign within the Touchless form.
7. Click Save to store this template.

For further details, see Configure Contract Templates.

Add the Template to the Workflow

Once the template has been set up, you can add it to the workflow.

1. Navigate to the workflow, then click the AutoCreate NDA Draft phase.
2. From Actions, click Edit AutoAction Values alongside AutoAction | Generate Draft from Contract.
   
   
3. Alongside NDA, select the relevant template and click Save.
   
   

Set the AutoAction Values

Certain fields, such as Category, Entity, and Team are mandatory for creating a valid contract record in Gatekeeper. The AutoAction: Create Contract phase needs values for key fields, so you need to set defaults for these, and amend any other values as needed.

1. Click to edit the 🛠 AutoCreate Contract Record 🛠  phase.
2. From Actions, click Edit AutoAction Values alongside AutoAction | Create Contract.
   
   
3. Populate and amend the default values for your NDA records.
4. Click Save.

See Edit AutoAction Values for further details.

🛠 Additional Configuration 🛠

This section covers optional steps to adjust the workflow's scope or default settings, helping you tailor it to your organisation's needs.

Add Personalised Links

You can create personalised links for the Touchless form. When a new vendor uses one to initiate an NDA request, the Internal Contract Owner is automatically assigned based on the internal user who shared the link with them. If you do not use personalised links, Gatekeeper will assign the default owner for all new NDAs.

1. Click to edit the first phase of the workflow.
2. From Form Access, click Manage Personal Links.
   
3. Click ➕Add Personal Link, then
   1.  select specific users from the dropdown list, or
   2. click Select All to create a personalised link for every user in your Gatekeeper tenant.
4. Click Save.

See Personalised Touchless Links for further details.

Add Your Company Name to the Form

The name of the Start Phase will appear at the top of the form when opened by vendors. Changing it to your own company name is recommended to reassure the vendor that they're in the right place. 

To do this, click to edit the first phase of the workflow and amend the Title field.

Amend the Internal Contract Negotiator

The Internal | Draft Review phase defaults to the Internal Contract Owner, who takes responsibility for conducting negotiations and redlining. If they aren't responsible for performing legal revisions, you can assign a different owner instead, such as users in the Legal or Contract Management teams.

1. Navigate to the workflow and click to edit the Internal | Draft Review phase.
2. From Form Access, select the None radio button under Auto-Assign Rules, then select the relevant radio button under Card Owners.

You can assign individual users, teams, or workflow groups. If you haven't already created workflow groups in your tenant, see Manage Workflow Groups for step-by-step instructions on creating groups and adding users.

Configure External-Only Signatures

If the contract being created doesn't require an internal eSigner (for example, if the docoment is pre-signed), you can configure the workflow to only request a signature from the vendor.

1. Click to edit the eSign phase.
2. From Actions, select the External Signatory Only checkbox under AutoAction | Send for eSign.

Remove Option to Propose Changes

If you're using a pre-signed template and want to avoid vendors making updates to the contract, you can remove the option to click I need to Propose Changes. 

This requires vendors to accept your standard NDA terms or choose not to register.

1. Click the AutoCreate NDA Draft phase to edit it.
2. From Transitions, click the Draft Created | Draft Review Requested transition.
   
3. Click the delete icon on Touchless Form | Request changes flag group / I need to Propose Changes.
4. Click Back, then click thedelete icon on Draft Created | Draft Review Requested.
5. Click the start phase of the workflow to edit it.
6. From Form Access, deselect the Allow the user to request changes via eNegotiate checkbox.

Vendors will no longer be able to propose changes on the Touchless form. It's recommended to delete the Vendor | Draft Review and Internal | Draft Review phases, as these are no longer required in the workflow. 

Allow Vendors to Reject During Negotiations

By default, vendor users can't reject a draft, they can only accept the current draft or submit a new one. However, Reject can be re-enabled if you want to give vendors the option to opt out of continuing negotiations.

1. Click to edit the Vendor | Draft Review phase.
2. From Actions, deselect the Email - Submit & Approve Only checkbox alongside Submit Contract Draft.

Enable Online Document Editing

If your company uses Microsoft Office for the Web, OneDrive, or Google Docs to perform document editing, you can enable this within the workflow to facilitate redlining on the Internal Draft Review phase.

1. Click to edit the Internal | Draft Review phase.
2. From Actions, select the relevant checkbox underneath Submit Contract Draft.

 

Connect a Vendor Onboarding Process

You can automatically trigger a vendor onboarding process for any vendors that have completed the NDA workflow. See Parallel Workflows: NDA & Automated Vendor Onboarding for an introduction to this use case.

1. From the navigation menu, click Workflows.
2. Expand the 3 dots on the vendor onboarding workflow, then select Workflow Triggers.
3. Click ➕ ADD TRIGGER, then enter a name e.g. NDA Executed, ready for Onboarding and click Create. 
4. Click Add to set up the following two conditions:
   1. Vendor / Status is one of Live.
   2. Vendor / Approval is one of Awaiting Approval.
5. Set the Trigger Status to Live.

Additional Setup Outside the Workflow

If you’ve followed all of the steps above, your workflow is nearly ready to launch. However, to help the process run as smoothly and reliably as possible, there are a few additional areas of your Gatekeeper tenant worth reviewing.

Configure Signatories

The eSign phase automatically sends the NDA out for signature when a card arrives on it. If the contract requires both internal and external signatures, internal signatories must be configured before using the workflow. If not set up in advance, the eSign action will fail and must be restarted manually. Follow the steps below to configure the required internal signatories:

1. From the navigation menu, expand the Settings option, then click Configuration.
2.  Click eSign.
3. Click Add, then select eSign Signatory.
4. Select the user from the dropdown list.
5. Click Save.

Repeat steps 3-5 until all users who may need to sign NDAs have been added.

⚡️Getting Started ⚡️

Now the workflow is fully configured, you can start using it by distributing the link to vendors.

If you have Employee Portal, users with a personalised link can access and copy this link in their Submit Requests dashboard.

If you don't have Employee Portal, or wish to access the standard URL (i.e. not a personalised link), you can copy this from the Form Access section of the workflow start phase.

The links can be shared directly with vendors, or stored somewhere they can access, for example on your website or linked in email signatures.

Additional Reading 📚

• Configure and Send Files for eSign: Review the steps for configuring our native eSign solution and setting up authorised signatories.
• Configure Contract Templates: See a full overview of setting up a contract template so you can create an NDA document for this workflow.