Use the Lifecycle Preset in Workflow Designer – Ironclad

This article will walk you through what the Lifecycle Preset in Workflow Designer is and how to use it.

We highly recommend taking the Manage Data Academy course and then walking through the Restructure Your Data article. These resources will help you understand the big picture of how the Lifecycle Preset is used within Ironclad, and how to use Data Manger and properties to support this new model.

The Lifecycle Preset is a collection of properties, conditions, and launch form questions to help you easily track key contract lifecycle in your workflows, such as agreement date, expiration date, and auto-renewal information. The library of properties, conditions, and launch form questions in the Lifecycle Preset is added to newly created workflow configurations by default, and can be added to any existing workflow configuration with a single click. We highly recommend that you use the Lifecycle Preset in most, if not all, of your workflow configurations.

The Lifecycle Preset properties is required for customers to be able to leverage contract status and auto-renewal features. These properties are used by Ironclad to automatically track the status of a contract over time. If the Lifecycle Preset properties are not populated in a workflow, the resulting records may not accurately reflect the correct Active/Expired status and automatically follow their auto-renewal terms.

Add the Lifecycle Preset to a Workflow Configuration

The lifecycle preset is automatically added to new workflow configurations.
For existing workflow configurations, scroll to the bottom of the Properties and Conditions panel and click Add the lifecycle preset. Please read the section below on adding the preset to existing workflow configurations to learn more about conflicts.
On the Properties and Conditions panel located on the left, click the plus sign and select Lifecycle located under presets. Your workflow configurations is updated to include 11 properties, 7 conditions, and 9 launch form questions. The full list of properties, conditions, and launch form questions can be found below.
The workflow configuration is now automatically set up to track key contract lifecycle information. The properties and associated launch form questions are used to collect contract lifecycle information from your users on the launch form, such as agreement date, expiration date, and auto-renewal information. These properties will populate the Record Status after the contract is executed.
The conditions are used to conditionally show only the launch form questions that are relevant to the current workflow. For example, if the Renewal Type is Evergreen, the launch form questions that ask for the renewal term length and number of renewals allowed will not be shown.

Edit/Delete Properties and Conditions

You may find that you don’t need all of the properties, conditions, or launch form questions. You can always delete properties from the preset and choose to power them with formulas instead of a question.

On the Properties and Conditions panel located on the left, locate the property or condition you want to delete. Click the three stacked dots located next to it and then click Delete property or Edit property. When editing the property, you can only add formulas. Names and Data Types of the lifecycle preset properties cannot be changed.
If you selected Delete property, a confirmation modal displays informing you of the consequences of deleting the property, and any other related properties/conditions that will be affected by the deletion of the property.

View Image
If you deleted a property from the preset by accident, you can easily re-add the property by clicking the three vertical dots to the right of an active preset property > View Preset. From there, click the three vertical dots next to the deleted preset and then click Add property back to preset.

Edit/Delete Launch Form Questions

You can remove or edit any launch form questions added with the Lifecycle Preset. This is important because it is the only part of the experience that your workflow users will see. For example, if you want to describe auto-renewals in a different way from the standard launch form question, you can edit the question. If your contracts never auto-renew, you can delete the question.

Click on the Workflow Designer tab and select the workflow configuration you want to modify. Click on the Create tab.
Locate the questions you want to modify. You can edit the Lifecycle Preset questions as you would any other existing questions.
To delete a question, click Delete question located in the bottom right of the question.

View Example

If you know that all of your contracts from your template are evergreen, you won’t need the properties, conditions, and launch form questions to collect information on expiration date, initial term length, renewal term etc. You can just delete the renewal type question, the associated properties, questions, and conditions, and just power the Renewal Type property with a formula.

Finally, in cases where you would like to still have users fill out these details but they may not be available at launch, you can leverage sections, and our feature to only display questions in the Review step to get those details. image (19).png

Deleting the question is another way of only filling out the properties during the Archive step. However, conditions and multi-choice questions don’t apply at the Archive step, so you’d want to review this closely.

Existing Workflow Configurations vs. New Workflow Configurations

The Lifecycle Preset is relatively simple to use in a new workflow configuration because it gets added by default when you're building it from scratch.

If you are updating and adding the preset to an existing workflow configuration, there may be conflicts with properties in the preset. These properties may fall into three categories:

Exact same name and data type as the preset
Same name, but a different data type
Represent the same concept as a property in the preset, but have a different name and/or data type

Properties with the Same Name and Data Type

Properties that match the name and data type of the lifecycle preset will be automatically updated to the lifecycle preset. If the conflicting property was powered by a formula, the formula will be retained.
Adding the lifecycle preset may result in duplicate questions in the launch form due to associated questions for the properties. This will be flagged in the workflow’s warnings and can be resolved by removing one of the two questions.
- For renewal type questions, if you have a conflict and choose to delete the preset question, ensure that the values from your custom question match the accepted values for the property shown below.
Any formulas referencing the conflicting properties will show an error and need to be updated to use the new property. To do this, go into the formula for the property that is erroring, click the property in red, and select the new property from the dropdown.

Properties with the Same Name, but Different Data Type from Lifecycle Preset

All of the rules as the above will apply and the properties will get replaced by the lifecycle preset properties. Due to the difference in data type however, there may be errors that workflow designer will flag for you that would need to be resolved before publishing the workflow configuration, for example deleting/updating questions or formulas that use the wrong data type.
In addition to fixing these errors, please be sure to note these properties down so that you can leverage data manager and metadata import to clean them up later.

Properties with the Same Concept as the Preset, but Different Name/Data Type

Your workflow configuration may already track lifecycle concepts like agreement date, expiration date, and auto-renewal information. This information may even have the same name as the preset properties but a different data type. In this case, some of your existing fields and launch form questions will overlap with the new ones from the Lifecycle Preset.
You will need to remove your existing fields and launch form questions to avoid overlap. The Lifecycle Preset should be the only set of properties, conditions, and launch form questions that track the lifecycle preset concepts. For example, you may have properties like:
- Agreement End Date
- Agreement Term
- Auto-renewal as True/False
- Auto-Renewal Opt-out Date
- Auto-renewal Term Length
- Termination Period
Make sure to note these changes as you make them so that you can use data manager and metadata import to clean up your existing records/workflows that referenced the old properties.

List of Properties, Conditions, and Launch Form Questions in the Lifecycle Preset

Property Name	Data Type	Question/Formula	Description	Required for Status/Auto-Renewals
Contract Owner	email	Formula: Get workflow owner’s email	This property is useful for having a modifiable, contract owner email in the Repository that you can send reminders to. By default this is powered by a formula which is set to be the email of the Workflow Owner.	No.
Expiration Date	date	What is the initial expiration date?	The expiration date is when this agreement will end or become inactive, if an expiration date isn’t present then the effective date plus the initial term length are used to determine the expiration date.	One of Expiration Date or Initial Term Length are required in order to determine the expiration date of an agreement. This is not required if the agreement is evergreen/perpetual or if it doesn’t have an explicit expiration date. The agreement will then stay active until the user manually marks the contract as expired.
Effective Date	date	What is the effective date?	The effective date is when this agreement begins and is considered active. If the effective date is not defined then the executed date of the agreement is used as the effective date.	Not required. If the effective date is not present on the record, the agreement date is used to mark the contract active, if that is also not present then the system will use the executed date (a system generated value which tracks the date when all signatures, or all approvals for contracts that don’t require a signature are collected).
Initial Term Length	duration	What is the initial term of the agreement?	The initial term length is the time from the effective date that the agreement will be effective for. If this is not defined, then the agreement will be active until the expiration date. If an expiration date is also not defined, then the agreement will be active indefinitely, until the agreement is manually marked as terminated or expired.	One of Expiration date or Initial Term Length are required in order to determine the expiration date of an agreement. Not required if the agreement is evergreen/perpetual or doesn’t have an explicit expiration date. The agreement will then stay active until the user manually marks the contract as expired.
Renewals Allowed	number	What are the maximum amount of times this agreement will auto-renew? (unlimited if left blank)	Agreements that have an auto-renewal, may have a maximum number of times they will auto-renew before expiring. If left blank, then the number of auto-renewals will be unlimited.	Only required for auto-renewing contracts that have a maximum number of auto-renewals, if not present or left blank the contract will auto-renew perpetually until canceled/terminated.
Renewal Term Length	duration	What will be the term of the renewal for this agreement?	If an agreement auto-renews or has an optional extension, that renewal/extension will have a term (1 year, 6 months, etc).	Required for agreements that are auto-renewing or have an optional extension and used to calculate the new expiration date when the agreement renews.
Renewal Opt-Out Period	duration	What is the opt-out period for this agreement?	An agreement may have an opt-out period that let’s you opt out of the upcoming auto-renewal before it renews. In the case of an opt period, the last day to opt out is the expiration date minus the opt-out period. Ironclad maintains the Renewal Opt Out Date by using the Renewal Opt-Out Period. When the expiration date in the Repository is changed as a result of an auto-renewal, optional extension, or metadata edit, the renewal opt-out date will be recalculated using the opt-out period. If a Renewal Opt-Out Period is not provided but an Opt-Out Date is, then the renewal term length will be used to move the Opt-Out Date forward when the contract Auto-Renews or is Extended.	No.
Renewal Opt-Out Date	Date	What is the opt-out date for this agreement?	An agreement may have an opt-out period that let’s you opt out of the upcoming auto-renewal before it renews. In the case of an opt period the opt-out date is the expiration date minus the opt-out period.	No.
Renewal Type	text - multiple choice	What is the renewal type for this agreement?	The renewal type for an agreement will govern what happens on its expiration date if it has one. Auto-Renew: These agreements will automatically renew on their expiration date which means they will then have a new expiration date which would be the current date plus the renewal term length. Optional Extension: These agreements have an optional extension which means that the party can choose to renew the agreement by the renewal term length without renegotiating the contract. There may be a notification requirement to exercise this option. Evergreen: These are agreements that don’t have an expiration date, which means they are active forever. Also known as perpetual agreements. None: This is for agreements that don’t have a renewal provision and will expire on their expiration date. If an agreement has no renewal provision but also doesn’t have an expiration date, it’ll be active forever. Other: For renewal provisions that are not covered by these options.	Required if you would like to accurately track the full lifecycle of the agreement. If this is not present or left blank, the contracts will either stay active forever or expire if an expiration date is present.
Termination Notice Period	duration	What is the notice period for this agreement?	This is the number of days of notice that needs to be given before this agreement can be terminated.	No.
Other Renewal Type	text	If other, what is the renewal type for this agreement?	For renewal types not handled by the Ironclad platform. In this instance, Ironclad will treat these as contracts with no renewal provision.	Yes, if you would like to account for renewals not captured by the renewal types listed above. The Ironclad platform, however, will just expire these agreements on the expiration date if an expiration date is present.
Condition: Auto-Renew	condition	Renewal Term Length Number of Renewals Renewal Opt-Out Period Expiration Date		This ensures that the questions relevant for auto-renewals only show up when required.
Condition: Optional Extension	condition	Renewal Term Length Number of Renewals Renewal Opt-Out Period Expiration Date		This ensures that the questions relevant for optional-extensions only show up when required.
Condition: Renewal Type Other	condition	Other Renewal Type		This ensures that the questions relevant for other renewal types only show up when required.
Condition: Evergreen	condition			This ensures that the questions relevant for evergreen agreements only show up when required.
Condition: None	condition	Expiration Date		This ensures that the questions relevant for agreements with no renewal provision only show up when required.