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
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:
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:
Additional Reading 📚
See a full walkthrough guide of the uses & settings for configuring Saved Views
See a list of all the available AutoActions in Gatekeeper Workflows