Hey everyone! 😃
I am at the precipice of executing the upload, review, and metadata tagging of ~2000-3000 historical contracts that are currently stored in Sharepoint. I have completed a historical upload project before, but this one will be larger and more complex, and the last one was 2+ years ago, so Ironclad has released various Repository/upload features since then.
So, anyone who has done a historical upload, I'm wondering if I can pick your brains to see what you learned, challenges you came across, or processes you found helpful to use. I am open to any advice or feedback you might have, but these are some things I've been thinking about:
- Overall, what would you have done differently?
Did you run into any challenges or frustrations in the later stages that you wish you had planned for ahead of time?
- Standard Import or Smart Import?
If you used Smart Import, was it helpful/accurate? How much grooming did it require after it filled in the fields for you? Did you use Ironclad AI Clauses or AI Custom Clauses? (I have not used AI in Ironclad yet so I'm a bit intimidated.)
- Metadata Import
Last time I did a historical upload, Metadata Import was not available. I imagine this feature would be very helpful during a historical upload - how did you utilize Metadata Import in this context?
- Essential Metadata
When reviewing the mass upload of contracts and filling in metadata, did you pick a small number of essential metadata fields that would be filled in for every contract? Or did you do something like a separate list of essential metadata for different Record Types?
- Delegation
How many people worked on the project - did you complete it by yourself, or did you delegate data entry to other people? Was it difficult to explain which fields they should update and how? (The challenges here seem similar to how the Archive Stage works, with no dropdown lists and such available in the fields to guide people.)
- Process for Certificates of Completion
Most of our contracts have an e-signature Certificate of Completion saved in a separate PDF, in the same file folder as the contract PDF. If I was uploading one by one, it would be simple to add the certificates as an extra document when I create each record, but doing a mass upload, I'm not sure how to do this efficiently. The only thing I can think of is to mass upload the contract PDFs only, and then as we review each one, go back to each Sharepoint folder and add the certificate PDF to the appropriate record. What did you do to accomplish this, if your certificates were not saved in the same PDF as the contracts?
- Did you have to manage duplicate uploads?
Most of my contracts are in Sharepoint, but some are in other locations, and I know that some of them are saved in both places. I don't have a great way of knowing which ones are duplicated, so some duplicates will probably end up in the Repository. (Our pre-Ironclad naming conventions are somewhat standard, but get less standard the further we go back in time, so it's not reliable.) Any good ways to catch duplicates so we avoid putting effort into reviewing the same document more than once?
These are just random thoughts floating around in my head lately, no need to respond to these items specifically.
Super curious to hear about your experience with historical uploads, I appreciate any responses.
Thanks! 😊
