⚡️ Gatekeeper Expert: Team Contracts ⚡️

How to grant users visibility of all contracts coming through the pipeline for their team

      Restore Visibility

      Estimated Read Time: 5 Minutes

        Estimated Configuration Time: 20-30 Minutes

 


 

Sections in this Article:

Introduction

Configuration

Configuration - Metadata

Configuration - Workflow

Configuration - Saved View

Summary

 


 

Introduction

 

Walkthrough Video Coming Soon...

 

Gatekeeper Workflows are far and above the most useful way to add new agreements to your repository.

They can ensure proper procedures are adhered to, metadata records are fully decorated/reviewed, and can even facilitate most of the key contracting actions along the way by embedding functionality like approvals, draft redlining & signatures

However, due to the fact that Contracts can be confidential in nature, access to active workflow processes is designed to be kept on a "need-to-know" basis for your users

For a complete guide to the ways to grant users access to a workflow, see this article:

📖 Workflow Authorisation Overview 

The TL;DR of the above article is that you can gain access to a workflow form if you are:

(a) A user who has initiated a request (and will therefore maintain visibility of your requests)

(b) A user responsible for a specific action/approval on the workflow (i.e. a Phase owner)

(c) A User with Admin permissions and can therefore see all workflow cards

If you have some users who do not fall into these 3 buckets but still want to be aware of contracts in the pipeline for their team*, you can leverage a small amount of data/workflow config to give them the ability to stay in the loop! 

 

* This will rely on these users having "Own Team" repository access (or similar RBAC Access)

 

 

 


 

Configuration

 

💡 This following tasks will involve adding a new Custom Data field to act as a "Workflow Status indicator"

This field (of Type:Dropdown List) will contain options which mirror the phases of your workflow.

When we configure AutoActions to update this "Status Indicator", users will be able to see the progress of the workflow mirrored via this repository field

 

Adding the Custom Field

Step 1) Head to Settings > Configuration > Custom Data

Step 2) Hit Add > Add Custom Group

Step 3) Name this group "Workflow Statuses" & select Allocated to: Contract

Check ☑️ Collapsed by default & Uncheck ☑️ Editable in Repository before saving

Step 4) Hit Add > Add New Custom Field

Step 5) Label your field to match the workflow

For Example, where your Workflow Name is "Contract Approval Workflow"
Set your Field Label to "Contract Approval Workflow Status"

Step 6) For Type, select Dropdown List, then populate an Option representing every phase of your workflow

See below example:

 

See 📖 Configuring Custom Data Fields for a complete guide to this configuration task

Also  see the Editable Locations Update to view how this new field can be locked so it may only be edited via the following Workflow AutoActions

 

 


 

 

Updating your field automatically on the Workflow

Once you have created your new "status" field, you can leverage Gatekeeper's AutoActions to set this field whenever a card transitions  on the kanban board

 

💡 This will involve adding an AutoAction Phase ahead of all pre-existing Phases to "flip the switch", setting the status field to be a reflection of what is currently underway on the workflow

Example Workflow Before

Example Workflow After

Part 1 - Adding the Phases

Step 1) Navigate to the right hand side of the workflow board

Step 2) Next to New Phase, hit ADD

Step 3) Choose a phase title for your phase (such as "🛠 AutoUpdate [x]  🛠"), then hit ✅ Save

Step 4) Hit Reorder & Minimise to move your phase to the point in the workflow where it fits your process, check ☑️ Minimise, then hit ✅ Update

Step 5) Repeat Steps 1 - 4 until every original phase of your workflow is now preceded by a minimised "AutoAction" phase

 

Part 2 - Re-Pointing Transitions to your new Phases

💡 Pro Tip 💡

If you want to find out which transitions point to a phase, you can try to archive that phase

Gatekeeper will not let you archive a phase if there are active transitions pointing to it (this is to prevent workflow cards transitioning into a 'black hole')

When attempting to archive a phase, you will be presented with a list of transitions blocking the archive action; this list will contain hyperlinks to navigate directly to those transitions where you can simply change the destination of that rule!

Step 1) Click to Archive one of your original phases (but do not actually archive it!) 

Step 2) If there exists a Transition pointing to this phase, click to view it

Step 3) While viewing the transition, edit the "Transition to Phase" value, changing it to the AutoAction phase preceding the phase you tried to archive then hit ✅ Update

Step 4) Repeat Steps 1 - 3 until all no transitions point to your original phases - they all should all point to the AutoAction phases preceding your original phases

 

Part 3 - Adding your "Status" field to the Workflow form

Step 1) Go to the start phase of the workflow & hit Edit this Phase

Step 2) Navigate to the Form tab

Step 3) Scroll to the bottom and hit ADD SECTION

Step 4) Name this section "Workflow Status"

Step 5) Select Predefined: Contract, then for Custom Data Group choose the new group you created ⬆️ above ⬆️

Step 6) Set this new section to 🔘 Hidden on every phase of the workflow

Users should not need to populate this status field nor will it benefit them to see it in the form, so it should be hidden to avoid confusion/clutter

 

Part 4 - Configure the AutoActions

Step 1) Go to an AutoAction phase & hit Edit this Phase

Step 2) Navigate to the Actions tab 

Step 3) Enable ⚙️ AutoAction Update Contract

Also enable ☑️ Submit Card On Action &  ☑️ Update Form on Action

NB. If a contract had not been created yet, the first of these actions needs to be ⚙️AutoAction Create Contract

Step 4) Hit Edit AutoAction Values

Step 5) Tick the master Take value from form ☑️ option for all fields except the new dropdown field, which you should set to indicate the status of the card at the current phase on the workflow

Step 6) Repeat Steps 1 - 5 for all of your AutoAction phases



 

Part 5 - New Transitions

Step 1) Go to an AutoAction phase & hit Edit this Phase

Step 2) Navigate to the Transitions tab

Step 3) For the Submission transition, select the phase immediately afterwards in the workflow & hit ✅ Update

 

 


 

 

Creating the Saved View

Once this field is created and you have configured your workflow to automatically update the value, users can create a new Saved View selecting the fields and the "workflow statuses" they wish to see:

Step 1) Go to your Contracts Repository

Step 2) Hit the Configure Columns button & select the "Workflow Status" field (as well as any other useful/relevant fields for this view), then hit ✅ Save

Step 3) Hit the Filter icon & select all the options from your Workflow Status field, then hit ✅ Save

💡 If you only want to include "In-progress" contracts in this view, you could select all options except that of the final completed value

Step 4) Hit Save This View, choose a Title & hit ✅ Submit

 

 


 

The Result

Non-Admin users can now view all new contracts and be aware of their status in the pipeline with no risk of seeing confidential information or superfluous information from other departments on the workflow!

 

Demo Video Coming Soon...

 

 

 


 

FAQ 💬

 

Q: Can I create this view as an admin and share with my users?

A: Currently, Saved Views cannot be shared between users.

If this is an important scenario for you - Please upvote this Ideas Forum post:

💡 Idea: Share Saved Views with Other Users

 


 

Additional Reading 📚

 

Saved Views

See a full walkthrough guide of the uses & settings for configuring Saved Views

 

AutoActions

See a list of all the available AutoActions in Gatekeeper Workflows