Who has access to my contracts in my contract management system?

Generally speaking, almost everyone realizes that they need to automate the management of their contracts!

However, a number of questions often occur.  Here are just a couple of common questions:

• Who will have access to the data/information in the system (internal and external parties)?
• What controls are in place to prevent the misuse of data by those having authorized access?
• Is there a complete audit trail of the activity on the system and can I view/report this information?
• Can I show/prove to auditors who has access to the system, what contracts they can view and what permissions they have?

One way to answer the question is to provide a visual map of the the various groups, permissions and ultimately the documents that a user can access and with what privileges. 

Contract Management Role Relationship Illustration from Contract Guardian

The following are suggestions for your contract management role permissions and names. The role descriptions shown below are just examples. You can create an infinite number or roles and associated permission to match your organizations needs and naming conventions.

• Administrator
• Contract Manager
• Contract Author
• Contract Reader

Learn more about suggested capabilities and features by reading Contract Management Roles Document or call 513.977.4544.

www.contractguardian.com

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Configuring a Contract Management System

Modern Contract Management Solutions typically allow you the user to perform numerous configurations to address your needs.  This is certainly the case with Contract Guardian.  Our system and other products on the market allow you to configure with or without the vendor's assistance.  If you are new to a Contract Management System, we recommend you lean on the vendor for the free assistance that they offer.

Some of the more common configuration components include:

• Roles - this is typically a group of permission that you can assign to a role.  Permissions include item likes Add Agreements, Add Attachments, Delete Agreements, etc.  Some systems have only a few options whereas others offer a more extensive permission list. 
• Groups - this is often a great shortcut for managing security for individual users.  Instead of assigning roles to a user, one assigns them to a Group and then assigns a user to a Group.  Any user that is a member of a group, automatically inherits their permissions.  One can usually be a member of more than one group.
• Contract Types and Custom Fields - No matter how thorough a system, the vendor can never anticipate every contract type or what content you need to capture today or in the future.  Today, the leading contract management systems allow the contract administrator to create any type and specify what information they wish to capture.
• Other configuration items can include: contract statuses, parties and types, attachment types, task types, organization structure and definition, email notification standards, etc.

Since configuration and customization are typically collaborative, we suggest you take advantage of the vendor's service and experience. .