Working with Contract Documents

You can add documents to your contract workspace, such as NDA agreements, instructions, or reference materials. Some documents are inherited from the project template the contract is based on and appear automatically in the Documents tab of the project. Contract owners can, however, also add ad-hoc documents based on the particularities of the contract. Documents that can be uploaded or created in a contract workspace are:

• Non-assembled documents (PDFs, Microsoft Word, Excel or PPT)
• Assembled documents (Main Agreement and Contract Addenda)
• Contract Line Item Documents
• Contract Terms Document link

Non-assembled documents can be created with any application, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, or a plain text editor. SAP Ariba Contracts handles each non-assembled document as a single component or a flat file with no internal structure or subcomponents. To upload a file in a project:

1. Navigate to the Documents tab.
2. Choose Actions → Upload Document or Actions → Create Document. Both commands enable you to load a file from your desktop to the project. The Actions → Create Document command also enables you to load a copy of a file that already exists in another SAP Ariba project into the current project.
3. SAP Ariba opens a Create Document page. If you chose the Actions → Create Document command, the page includes a New Document and a Copy Document tab.

Please note the Use As field in the image above. Depending on the site configuration, the Use As drop-down menu can include the following options:

• Order Form: This option is present if you work on a sales contract request or workspace. If you create a sales contract workspace from a contract request, all order form documents are copied to the contract workspace.
• Contract Content: This option is present if the document is a Microsoft Excel file and SAP Ariba Contracts is integrated with SAP Ariba Procurement solutions. The file will be used as a Contract Terms Excel File document. When you create a contract workspace as a follow-on to a sourcing event with pricing terms, SAP Ariba creates an Excel document titled Pricing Terms with this option set.
• Contract Compliance Attachment: This option is present if SAP Ariba Contracts is integrated with SAP Ariba Procurement solutions. SAP Ariba Contracts will propagate the file to the procurement or invoice contract request.

Should the buyer paper be chosen to define the agreement, the contract manager can upload it as a non-assembled document to the contract workspace. Alternatively, they can use the contract authoring functionality to create assembled documents. In this case, you can use a contract template that contains a draft document that utilizes your organization's preferred contract clauses as agreed upon by the legal team. Such documents are the Main Agreement and the Contract Addenda.

Contract authoring is a set of features that provide additional functions for working with assembled documents. Contract authoring enables an organization to maintain a library of clauses used during the contract lifecycle management process. This ensures that drafted agreements utilize standardized and legally approved clauses and terms.

An assembled document can have multiple subcomponents (sections and clauses). SAP Ariba Contracts provides an outline view of the Main Agreement that shows the section structure and clauses and enables the contract owner to edit the structure.

The clause library is maintained primarily by the legal team. They are responsible for reviewing, updating, and deleting clauses within the library to ensure the latest and endorsed clauses are available for contract managers to use in their contract agreements. Contract managers can request new clauses or clause updates in the library, which route to the legal team for review and approval as necessary.

During the negotiation and execution phase of the contract management lifecycle, contract managers are free to update clauses within the main agreement or replace them with alternate or fallback clauses from the library. These changes will automatically trigger an approval notification to the legal team to review the updates made to the main agreement.

Typically, the Outline View is used to edit the document structure, and Microsoft Word view is used to edit text. Microsoft Word allows you to:

• Add, modify, or remove text within a clause.
• Add a new clause.
• Reorder clauses inside the document.
• Add, modify, or remove footnotes and headers.

Play the video to learn how to manage assembled documents inside a contract workspace.

A contract line items document (CLID) is an online document specifying the contract's terms, or the goods or services acquired by the contract. Each line item includes pricing information and terms, such as price and quantity. A line items document is added to a contract workspace using one of the following methods:

• Automatically at project creation time. A user creates a procurement contract workspace from a project template containing a line items document. SAP Ariba creates an empty line items document.
• An SAP Ariba Sourcing event is completed, and the event manager creates an award, then creates a contract workspace for the award and selects a contract workspace template that contains a line items document. In this case, SAP Ariba creates a line items document that includes items from the event.
  Note

  You can also specify line items in pricing terms Excel documents, also referred to as Pricing Terms Excel documents. However, a workspace can contain either a Pricing Terms Excel document or a line items document, but not both. Users can create a line items document from a Pricing Terms Excel document. If a user selects a template that contains neither a Pricing Terms Excel document nor a line items document, the user is prompted to select what type of document to create, and the user selects line items document.
• Manually, from a procurement contract workspace. A user navigates to the Documents area and selects Create → Line Items Document.
• From a Pricing Terms Excel document. A user chooses the document name and selects Create Line Items Document.
• If SAP Ariba Contracts is integrated with SAP Ariba Procurement solutions and a workspace has an associated compliance contract request (or compliance contract), a user can select the contract terms link document and export to line items. The line items document is created with items from the compliance contract request (or compliance contract).
• An external system uses the Import Contract Line Items Document web service to send a request to the SAP Ariba system with line item data.

Contract line items document contents can be standard capacity or large capacity.

• Standard capacity line items documents can contain up to 2,000 line items.
• Large capacity line items documents can contain up to 10,000 line items. Users must manage items for large capacity line items documents using Microsoft Excel files.

To publish an entire contract workspace, the CLID must be in Published status. To make changes to a CLID in a published workspace, you will have to make an amendment to the contract workspace. Price Update amendments enable users to modify existing items in a contract line items document without triggering a new round of review or approval tasks for the workspace.

Play the video to learn how to create contract line items documents inside a contract workspace.

If your SAP Ariba Contracts solution is integrated with SAP Ariba Procurement solutions, you can create a contract terms link document to work with compliance contract requests (and compliance contracts). Essentially, this means you can leverage contract terms negotiated during the contract authoring stage for operational procurement, such as creating purchase orders directly against the contract.

If you do not want to push pricing terms or other contract data from a contract workspace to a compliance contract request, you do not need to use contract terms link documents.

A contract terms link document is located in a workspace's ​​Documents area; however, it is not a document you can edit or view. Instead of editing or viewing a contract terms link, you can:

• Create a contract terms link ad-hoc, which creates an associated compliance contract request in SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing.
• Open a contract terms link, which transfers you to the associated compliance contract request (or compliance contract).

You can have only one contract terms link per contract workspace. This document also maintains data shared between the workspace and the compliance contract request (or contract), such as the supplier information.

When you open a contract terms document from an SAP Ariba Contracts workspace, it will take you to the contract compliance request in SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing. The following project fields are propagated from the workspace to contract compliance:

• Contract ID
• Supplier
• Term Type
• Hierarchical Type
• Effective Date
• Expiration Date

Play the video to learn how to create contract terms link documents inside a contract workspace.