GETTING STARTED WITH CONTRACTS

Abstract Use contracts to establish, document, and track the agreements you make with your accounts. Before you begin using contracts, customize contracts to suit the needs of your organization. Best Practices
Approval Requests may need approval from more than one person. For any contract, create as many approval requests as necessary to receive approval from the appropriate persons. See the Salesforce online help for more information.

Getting Started with Contracts

Life-Cycle of a Contract
Use Salesforce to handle your internal process for contracts: give users contract privileges, design contract status values for different stages in the contract life-cycle, and design page layouts for different types of contract administrators. Before you begin using contracts, review a basic contract approval process: Create a contract A contract is an agreement defining the terms of doing business with another party. Initially, the status of a new contract is Draft. Create an Approval Request An approval request is a request to someone in your organization that has the Approve Contracts permission. The recipient can approve or reject an approval request. Sending the initial approval request changes the contract status to In Approval Process. Activate the contract An approved contract is activated when it is finalized and no longer changeable. Approving a contract changes its status to Activated.

Give Users Contract Privileges

Best Practices
Update your profiles so that they display the Contracts tab. Assign contract permissions to the appropriate profiles such as: Sales Reps - Edit on Contracts Sales Mgr Approve Contracts Sales Ops - Activate Contracts

Your system administrators profile contains the following contract permissions: User Permissions on Contracts Create, edit, and delete contracts that are not yet activated Approve Contracts Apply an approved status to a contract Activate Contracts Activate contracts, create, edit, and delete contracts

Last updated: October 9, 2011

Getting Started with Contracts

Delete Activated Contracts Delete contracts regardless of status, activate, create, and edit contracts

Organizations that use products also receive a new standard profile: Contract Manager. This profile includes edit, approve, and activate contract permissions as well as all the permissions in the Standard User profile.

Customize Page Layouts

Tip
To modify contract page layouts, click Your Name > Setup > Customize > Contracts > Page Layouts. To add the Contracts related list to account page layouts, click Your Name > Setup > Customize > Accounts > Page Layouts. To modify the contract mini page layout, click Mini Page Layout on the contract layout page.

If your users need access to different contract fields, create multiple page layouts for your contracts to make the necessary fields available to the appropriate users. For example, your management team may need to change the status of contracts but your sales team does not need access to the status field. To satisfy each group, create two page layouts and make the status field available on one. Then assign the page layout with the status field to the profile(s) for your management team. Add the Contracts related list to the appropriate accounts page layouts. Then, your users can create a contract for a specific account from the Contracts related list on a selected account. See Create Custom Links for instructions on how you can set up your Opportunities page layouts so that users can create contracts from an opportunity. You can define mini page layouts for contracts to display specific contract information in the mini view of the Console tab. Mini page layouts contain a subset of the items in existing contract page layouts.

Customize Fields
Tip
To modify contract fields, click Your Name > Setup > Customize > Contracts > Fields.

Design contract fields so that your users can track contract details. For example, customize the Status field to include the steps in your contract business process. Each Status value must be in one of three standard categories: Draft, In Approval Process, or Activated. Use these status categories when creating custom reports or views. Select which standard and custom fields to track on the Contracts History related list. Tracked entries include the date, time, nature of the change, and who made the change. Create contract custom fields to hold data specific to your business process.

Use Record Types

Tip (Enterprise and Unlimited Editions only)
To access contract record types, click Your Name > Setup > Customize > Contracts > Record Types.

If you have different groups that follow different business processes, use record types to control which contract picklist values are available to different users. For example, your organization may only have an approval process for certain contracts. If so, make your approval picklist values available to the group that follows an approval process.

Getting Started with Contracts

Use record types to display different page layouts for different contracts. For example, contracts with partners may need to display different fields than contracts with clients. If so, create a page layout for partners and one for clients. Then, create a contract record type for partners and one for clients. Associate the partner record type with the partner page layout and associate the client record type with the client page layout. Contract records assigned to the partner record type will display using the partner page layout.

Set Up Your Contract Workflow

Tip (Enterprise and Unlimited Editions only)
To set up contract workflow rules, click Your Name > Setup > Create > Workflow & Approvals.

Create workflow rules to assign tasks or send emails when your contracts meet certain conditions. For example, you may want to assign a task for the contract owner whenever a renewal is approaching. You could also schedule a workflow rule to send an email when the contract status changes.

Create Custom Links

Note
You may have to add a few steps to this procedure if you have enabled record types for contracts. Your new contract will be associated with the account on the selected opportunity. Customize your custom link further to auto-select more fields on the contract. See the online help on custom links to do this.

If you have added the Contract related list to your accounts page layouts, you can create a new contract from an account. You can also create a new contract from an opportunity by creating a custom link for your opportunity page layouts. 1. Copy the URL used when creating a new contract. a. b. c. d. Select an account. Click New from the Contract related list. Select the text in the address bar of your browser. Select Ctrl+C to copy it.

2. Create an opportunity custom link using the URL copied. a. b. c. d. e. f. Click Your Name > Setup > Customize > Opportunities > Custom Links > New. Enter a name and click Next. Paste the URL in the Link URL box. Select the text after accid= and replace it with the merge field: {!Opportunity_Account_ID}. Follow the rest of the custom links as usual. Save your new custom link.

3. Remember to add the custom link to your opportunity page layouts. Inform users that they can select an opportunity and click this link to create a contract for the account listed on the opportunity.