🛠 Create Your Own - Touchless™ NDA Workflow

 Take Control

  Estimated Read Time: 8 Minutes

   Estimated Configuration Time: 15-30 Minutes

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Sections in this article:

• Introduction
  • Workflow Diagram
• Mandatory Configuration
  • Add the Template
  • Add the Contract Template
  • Add a Contract Template PDF Preview
  • Add the Template to the Workflow
  • Set the AutoAction Values
• Additional Configuration
  • Add Personalised Links
  • Add Your Company Name to the Form
  • Add Your Company Name to the Email Notification
  • Amend the Form Header Branding
  • Create and Assign Workflow Groups
  • Configure External-Only Signatures
  • Remove Option to Propose Changes
  • Allow Vendors to Reject During Negotiations
  • Enable Online Document Editing
  • Add Local Workflow Collaborators or Administrators
  • 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 webinar:🧑‍💻  Gatekeeper Touchless Contracts™

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 automatic creation and signing of a new contract

This workflow reduces time spent on form entry and speeds up the start of new vendor 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: XML / PDF

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🛠 Mandatory Configuration 🛠

The steps in this section outline the essential setup required to make your workflow fully functional. Watch the video below for a demonstration:

 

The ⬇️ Additional Configuration ⬇️ section covers optional additions to expand the scope of your process or tailor the workflow to better align with your organisation’s unique policies, procedures, and Gatekeeper subscription features.

Add the Template Workflow

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

You'll first 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. Click Save to store this template.

Add a Contract Template PDF Preview

To enable the Contract Preview within the Touchless Form, a PDF document must be uploaded to the eNegotiate Template. This also allows vendor users the option to suggest changes or proceed to eSign within the Touchless Form.

1. If you don't have a PDF version of the document, click the preview icon on the relevant template, then click the download icon.
   
2. Expand the 3 dots on the relevant template, then select Edit.
   
3. Upload the document to the PDF Preview then click Save.
   

 

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

There are key fields such as Category, Entity, and Team which are mandatory for creating a valid contract record as part of the AutoAction: Create Contract phase. You can set defaults for these, and amend other dynamic values like Dates and Owners.

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.

 

🛠 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 vendors 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 a default Internal Contract Owner to all new NDAs. See 📖 Personalised Touchless Links for a full explanation of this feature.

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.

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 are in the right place.

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

Add Your Company Name to the Email Notification

You can add your company name in the email subject line of the notification sent to vendors in the Vendor | Draft Review phase.

1. Click to edit the 👷‍♂️ Vendor | Draft Review  👷‍♂️ phase.
2. From Notifications, click the  Edit icon alongside the enabled email.
3. Edit the names and any other text in the email subject and content, then click Update.

Amend the Form Header Branding

You can amend the logo that appears at the top of the form being initiated by vendors to your own organisation's. To learn more, see Branding Your Tenant.

Create and Assign Workflow Groups

For the 👨‍💼 Internal | Draft Review 👨‍💼 phase, it may be necessary to assign an alternative group of users as the phase owner, in case the Internal Contract Owner is not responsible for performing legal revisions. This could be users in the Legal or Contract Management teams.

Part 1 - Create the Workflow Group

1. From the navigation menu, expand Settings then click Users.
2. Click Add then select Workflow Group.
   
3. Enter a title and, if useful, an optional description, then click Save.
4. Expand the 3 dots on the new workflow group and click Edit.
   
5. Click Add Member, then select a user and click Save. Repeat this until all members have been added.
   

See 📖 Manage Workflow Groups for more guidance.

Part 2 - Assign the Group to your Workflow

1. Navigate to the workflow and click to edit the 👨‍💼 Internal | Draft Review 👨‍💼.
2. From Form Access, select the None radio button under Auto-Assign Rules, then select the Workflow Group radio button under Card Owners.
3. Select the desired workflow group.

Configure External-Only Signatures

If the eNegotiate template being used does not require an internal eSigner (for example, if it's a pre-signed version), 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 your NDA, 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 cannot Reject a draft, they can only Accept the current draft or Submit a new draft.  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 the Internal Draft Review phase redlining.

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

Add Local Workflow Collaborators or Administrators

Aside from the stakeholders within each phase and any Global Workflow Administrators, there may be members of your organisation who should be added as Local Workflow Administrators or Collaborators. This gives them oversight of all cards created on this specific workflow.

1. From the navigation menu, click Workflows.
2. Expand the 3 dots on the workflow then select Local Workflow Authorisation.
3. Click Add then select New Workflow Administrator or Collaborator as appropriate.
4. Select the relevant user, then click Save.

See Workflow Authorisation Overview for further details on these roles.

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.

Part 1 - Amend the Vendor Approval Status

At the end of this workflow, AutoActions will update the status of both the NDA contract and vendor record to Live and Approved. However, if you want vendors to go through onboarding/due diligence assessments before setting them to Approved, you can amend the AutoAction value.

1. Click to edit the NDA Executed ✅ phase.
2. From Actions, click Edit AutoAction Values alongside ⚙️ AutoAction | Update Vendor.
3. Change the Approval dropdown value from Approved to Awaiting Approval.
4. Click Save.

Part 2 - Trigger the Onboarding Workflow

You can trigger all vendors set to Live and Awaiting Approval onto the onboarding workflow.

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 of this workflow automatically sends the NDA out for signatures when a card arrives on it. If the contract requires both internal and external signatures, internal authorised 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 to the signers list.

 

⚡️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 somewhere 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.
• Create a Workflow Diagram - While you may not need to create a new diagram for your version of this workflow, this article can help you understand the diagram at the top of this article.
• Configure Contract Templates - See a full overview of setting up a contract template so you can create an NDA document for this workflow.