Documentation for ContractStandards
As users provide guidance at the Clause level by tagging Clause Alternatives with labels, party-weight, clause status, and contract type, ContractStandards automatically generates an Assembly solution for a Contract. This article is an overview of how to use the Assembly tool once it is generated. Visit Editing a Clause to learn how to mark up Clauses to generate the Assembly tool.
To access the Assembly tool:
In the Published View, navigate to the desired Contract.
In the right-side column, select “Assemble.”
Throughout the document is bracketed text (e.g., [PARTY A NAME]) that allows the user to fill in variables for their specific deal. To fill in the variables, simply click on a variable and enter the desired text in the field. Filling in a variable in one place will update that variable throughout the entire document.
The Assembly tool has two sliders that can control multiple Clauses in the Contract: Clause Status and Party-Weight.
The Clause Status Slider allows the user to add/remove Clauses in the Contract based on their Status. Clauses can be marked as Required, Standard, or Optional. See Editing a Clause. The Clause Status Slider is additive. This means that as the user moves the slider from Required to Optional, the Slider will add Clauses corresponding to that status. For instance, if the user moves the Slider to “Standard,” the Contract will have all Required and Standard Clauses checked in the list of Clauses below. The Clause Status Slider is helpful in letting the user quickly switch to the short-form (“Required” only) and long-form (move Slider to “Optional”).
By adjusting the Party-Weight Slider, the user can change the Clause Alternatives for each Clause in the Contract to the corresponding Party-Weight. For instance, the user can toggle each Clause to that Clause’s neutral Clause Alternative by moving the slider to the middle node.
Users can add/remove Clauses from the Contract by checking/unchecking checkboxes next to a Clause. Users can use the individual checkboxes in conjunction with the Clause Status and Party-Weight Sliders. This allows users to make broad changes with the Clause Status and Party-Weight Sliders and then fine tune their changes at the individual Clause level.
Some individual Clauses have Sliders that allow the user to adjust that Clause’s Alternatives by Party-Weight. The individual Clause Sliders correspond to the Party-Weight Slider at the top of the Assembly tool (Middle = Netural, etc.). Users can hover over each node in a Slider to see the Key Question and Answers for each Clause Alternative.
For longer lists of Clause Alternatives, the Assembly tool provides a dropdown of Clause Alternatives for the user to choose from. Each dropdown will have the Key Question at the top of the menu and a list of Clause Alternatives. Selecting a Clause Alternative will update that Clause in the Contract.
ContractStandards lets a user save their choices in the Assembly tool to be used at a later time. Below the “Guide” and “Assemble” tabs are a few controls that allow users to save and load their Assembly drafts. These are:
To load a draft, click the dropdown and select the desired draft.
To save a draft, click the green Save button (floppy disk icon). The user gets two options:
To delete a draft, select the desired draft from the dropdown and select the red Delete button (an ‘X’).
To download, select the desired draft and click the download button. The user can save as a .docx, .html, or .rtf file.