No Cost Contract Automation: Create a digital contract lifecycle management system using Microsoft 365

By Henrik Hjertstedt

Create your own digital contract lifecycle management system

All legal departments face the same challenge: how to create a digital contract process?

The main way to do this is by purchasing software from one of the many software vendors on the market. This is fraught with problems since it requires you to adjust your processes to the software

• Language: English
• Publisher: LegalBot Press
• Release date: Feb 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9783952540817

Henrik Hjertstedt

Henrik Hjertstedt is a corporate lawyer and corporate legal IT expert. He is a trained and qualified lawyer with over 15 years international experience working both for law firms and companies on three continents around the world. He is valued for his street smart legal analysis and commercial solutions. Henrik has published his own legal services software - LegalBot AI Tools - which is a Microsoft certified connector for Azure services and the Power Platform. He also has a US Patent Pending for Contract Automation, Negotiation and Payment Software. On top of this he has almost 10 years education in law, international business, business administration and digital transformation. Henrik began programming in the 1990s when he built web portals and content management systems in his father's business. After this he qualified as a lawyer in Queensland, Australia. In recent years he has taken up an interest in combining both law and IT to create automated digital processes.

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No Cost Contract Automation

No Cost Contract Automation

No Cost Contract Automation

Create a digital contract lifecycle management system using Microsoft 365

Henrik Hjertstedt

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LegalBot Press

Copyright © 2021 by Henrik Hjertstedt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Henrik Hjertstedt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

No Cost Contract Automation is an independent publication and is neither affiliated with, nor authorized, sponsored, or approved by, Microsoft Corporation.

Nothing in this book shall be considered legal advice and no lawyer client privilege is established. Be sure to contact a licensed lawyer who can advise on your specific situation.

Internet links published in this book were current at the time of writing.

Identifiers: ISBN 9783952540800 (Hardback) | ISBN 9783952540817 (EPUB) | ISBN 9783952540824 (PDF) 

First Printing, 2021

To everyone who gave their time and inspired me in the past.

Thank you for giving me the wisdom to

inspire others in the future.

Contents

Dedication

Preface

1 Contract Process Mapping

2 Data Storage

3 Automating Data Entry

4 Use Forms for Data Entry

5 Document Templates

6 Document Automation

7 Automatic Approvals

8 Contract Signing and Automated Archiving

9 Contract Management

10 Bonus: Data Analysis

About The Author

Preface

What is No Cost Contract Automation?

Several years ago I realised there were two types of people. Those who were adopting technology and those who kept doing manual tasks. Whilst I was writing Microsoft Word macros to automate my work some of my friends and colleagues were feeling more and more overworked. I decided to share some of my simple automation programs with them to help. They were amazed and so happy! They used to ask how did you manage to do that or this used to take me hours!. Ever since I have been working to build better and better processes and automation. Finally, in this book, I have managed to detail my approach to a full digital contract lifecycle management process that can be implemented at no cost.

My belief is that we need to use technology to augment our ability, speed and knowledge. We use it to help with low value-added tasks. Drive automated processes. As an added benefit, when we have already implemented a working digital process, we will able to quickly implement artificial intelligence to assist with our work.

I am now on version 4 of my project. The journey to get to the process and techniques set out in this book has been long. I am really excited to share it with you and my hope is that it can automate your admin tasks so you can focus on important work.  This version of the project was made possible because of the advancement of no / low code software in the past two years.

No Cost Contract Automation is a fully customised contract automation and management system which uses the Microsoft 365 business standard software you already have. It is no cost because you do need to buy any new software. It is fully customised because the design can be based on your unique needs. There is no coding required.

I wanted to create this book to help others create a digital legal process at no cost. This book shows you step by step how to implement a No Cost Contract Automation system. It also gives you guidance on how you can customise it to your requirements. It is a technical book that can be used by people with no technical or coding knowledge. There is almost 300 graphics and 20 charts showing you step by step how to implement the system.

The system includes everything you need for your contract creation and management:

Legal process mapping

How to input business data including using online forms and integrations

Automatic document creation according to your templates and business requirements

Online approval system

Signature tracking

Automatic eAchiving

Contract management including automatic notifications

Power BI visual data analysis

This system has increased my productivity over 60 times. And I have used it to reduce specific legal tasks from one hour to one minute. I hope it will get you started with creating a digital legal process and saves you hundreds or thousands of hours in the next few years.

Henrik Hjertstedt

Zurich, Switzerland

1

Contract Process Mapping

Overview

In this chapter we will analyse our workflow and processes to design our project. This creates the blueprint for the No Cost Contract Automation project set out in this book.

Firstly, we will create a flow diagram of our process. Then we will take a look at the types of data categories we will use. Next, we will look at one of my core rules for the No Cost Contract Automation: Only Type Once. This principle helps you to focus on the building an efficient process. Finally we will look at how simulations can help guide our design process.

About the contract process workflow

All organisations have a vastly different, and constantly evolving, contract processes. However, in most cases the contract process involves five core stages: (1) parties who want to make a contract; (2) creating a contract; (3) signing the contract; (4) archiving the contract; (5) managing / executing the contract. These fives stages are common to all contract processes and is the base of this No Cost Contract Automation project. Our project will expand from this base to create digital workflows to accomplish each stage.

Figure 1-1

Basic contract process

Creating a digital legal process

The only way to automate our contract process is to make it digital. The key to building a good contract process is therefore to allow for flexibility to add or remove requirements or to introduce new technology. In this chapter we are look at the workflows and processes which make up a contract process. When looking at the processes I set out in this book you should think about what adjustments you would make to customise it to your specific requirements.

The next step to create a digital process is to identify the information which is needed throughout the process. In CHAPTER 2 we look at the categories of data in our No Cost Contract Automation project.

Stage 1: Contract parties workflow

The first stage of our process involves two or more parties getting together and deciding to create a contract. Figure 1-2 below shows a process about how the information for a new counter party could be added to a master data storage. The aim of this stage is to capture and/or retrieve data about the parties to the contract. In CHAPTER 3 we set up our company and counter party data.

To create a binding contract there is a need to properly identify those parties in the contract document. The data to be captured is usually information about a company or person, the people authorised to represent the company and, for internal purposes, the category of counter party. The information about the new counter party is either entered into our system by someone from within the organisation or retrieved from an external source—the counter party or an information service provider. In CHAPTER 4 we look at how to use online forms as a way to receive information from users.

Figure 1-2

Contract parties workflow

What is involved in the compliance step is determined by the size of the organisation, location and the industry it operates in. By adding the compliance step after the input of data it is possible to automatically complete the compliance step—for example by sending the new counter party data to a third-party service provider—before entering it into the approved master data. Once the data is in the master data it can be used through the No Cost Contract Automation project.

The master data also holds information about your organisation. That information is controlled internally and is updated from time to time as needed.

Stage 2: Contract creation workflow

The second stage of our process is document creation and negotiation as shown in Figure 1-3. The aim of this stage is to create a final agreed contract that can be signed. At this stage the document is either created from a template or imported from our counter party.

Figure 1-3

Contract creation and negotiation workflow

In the No Cost Contract Automation project covered in this book we will create a contract based on a template. Computers can process information a lot more quickly than humans. If you can make computers work for you when creating contracts, you will drastically speed up your contract drafting. In CHAPTER 5 we go through in detail how to create and setup a document template to enable document automation. With the template document prepared we work on automatic document creation in CHAPTER 6. The details of the document will include specific information added by a user and also information from the previous stage. For some types of contract there will be several rounds of negotiations before reaching a final negotiated document. Other times there is no negotiation. It is possible to incorporate either an automatic or manual process to go from document creation to final document.

Stage 3: Contract signing (and approval) workflow

The third stage of our process is contract signing as shown in Figure 1-4 below. The process includes an approval workflow since in most organisations there is a requirement for an approval before a contract is signed.

Figure 1-4

Approvals and Signing Process

In the No Cost Contract Automation project covered in this book we will add a digital approval process which is recorded and associated with a particular contract record. Ideally the signing process is done electronically. And even better it would be completed automatically directly after the approval is completed. However, in this book we will assume a manual signing process. In previous implementations of this project I have built an automated signing and eArchiving process using an API and email rules. Anything is possible! In CHAPTER 7 we design and build a robust approval process that automatically gets manager approval whilst at the same time permits an endless number of additional approvers.

Stage 4: Contract eArchiving workflow

The fourth stage of our process is electronic archiving as shown in Figure 1-5 below. Since we are creating a digital legal process we do not expect to have paper documents. It will take a while for paper to disappear totally—perhaps when all government and property transactions are conducted on Blockchains with digital ledger technology. This means our workflow and process needs to have some built in flexibility—automatic archiving and manually triggered archiving by uploading a signed document.

Figure 1-5

Contract archiving process

Traditionally, all contract information would need to be typed into the archive which would be