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Idea: Negotiation Step

David_Wieseneck

I wish there was a Negotiation step in between Create & Review.

Review step is just approvals... and often we are not ready to approve quite yet. Need a few weeks of back and forth & redlining.

- Create -> Negotiation -> Review -> Sign -> Archive -> Complete
or
- Create -> Review -> Approve -> Sign -> Archive -> Complete

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Comments

kristin_bednarek

This is is a great idea! If I could like it multiple times I would!

David_Wieseneck

Just get all your friends/colleagues to like it 🙂

Shelby_Schouweiler

Anyone else think that "Negotiation" is typically the longest, most nuanced, and most crucial stage in the whole contract process?

David_Wieseneck

Yes it is.

sarah_starr

I like this idea as well - I think one of the things that seem to lack in the overall workflows for Ironclad - is - what is next? It is great that we can push a contract anywhere we want at any point but that is hard for requestors to continue to remember what the flow should look like - which I have supplemented with a lengthy intranet page on the contract review and flow process.

We will continue to have these supplemental playbooks but I like this idea of creating new stages as suggested by @David_Wieseneck. We have also looked at enablement tools that might be the most helpful in guiding people through the intended flow. Would be great if IC offered their own enablement tool 💡

CC: @Andrew_Smith

David_Wieseneck

Love this idea. Thanks!

David_Wieseneck

This idea has over 20 likes! I feel like someone from the Product team should share an update on such a popular idea. Is this on the roadmap?

[Deleted User]

Since 2016, Ironclad workflows have had four steps: create, review, sign, archive. Over the years, all four steps have evolved, but the review step has undergone the most evolution by far.

“Review” has always been a shorthand for “Review and Negotiate,” as you can see from the June 2017 “Intro to Ironclad” slide deck. We chose to combine these concepts, because we realized that review, approval, and negotiation were all deeply tied together. Even in early rounds of negotiation before formal approval, each version of the contract is being implicitly approved by the contract negotiator. And even later-stage negotiations can be extensive, with formal approvals happening in parallel. For example, on our sales agreement, Jason Li (our SVP of Engineering) will sometimes be asked to formally approve specific language in an MSA or addendum, even while commercial terms are still in flux.

Screen Shot 2022-08-03 at 8.58.09 AM.png

So, we’ve had a vision for combining review and negotiation since 2017, but we initially released features around formal approval. Since then, we’ve worked hard to better support negotiation, releasing features like Share Document via Email, the Editor, Ironclad Connect, and hundreds of barely visible features that we’ve come to rely on.

Is it perfect? No. Would it be better for them to be separate steps? Maybe! But for now, we’re investing in the experience of reviewing and negotiating as a seamless, single step.

So what’s next? We know we’re not there yet (in terms of making it seamless), and we’re working hard to get there. In the coming months, you may notice updates to existing features to make this more seamless, like improved Editor support for lists and fonts, updates to how approvals and notifications work, improvements to Ironclad Connect. We’ll also be introducing new functionality that might more fundamentally change how you review and negotiate on Ironclad, including Smart Merge and Playbook enhancements.

[Deleted User]

Tl;dr - Yes, improving negotiation in Ironclad is on the roadmap, and there are a number of improvements coming. We really appreciate you all being proactively on this journey with us!

David_Wieseneck

Thanks for considering it @cai_gogwilt - stoked to see these roadmap items come alive (please give me beta access 😎)

Let me know if you ever want to chat about the user experience issues we have with it being one step.

For me the biggest issue is that approvers approve before they are supposed to (ie before negotiations finish). It leads to a lot of people ignoring initial notifications & then Legal needing to "remind" the approver "OK you can approve now". It is frustrating and trains users to just ignore Ironclad notifications.

[Deleted User]

Definitely hear you @David_Wieseneck! Thank you for the collaboration on this.

Jason_Salvino

What are your solutions for teams who have both Deal Desk and Legal working from the 'Review' stage that need to report on KPI's? For us, the data is too convoluted within 'Review' to get good metrics without having to "tell a story' for every visualization.

Joe_Nguyen

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Grace_Barrett

I agree - there should be a separate negotiate step, but I also get your point on new features in smart merge and playbook. Which I will be exploring.