Contract Status Actions

This article will walk you through how to change your contract statuses using status actions.

With the launch of the contract statuses and lifecycle features, all contracts in Ironclad reflect their current status across the product.

However, contract statuses are continuously evolving through amendments, supersessions, terminations, and other business decisions. In order to reflect the ever changing future of contract statuses, Ironclad gives you the ability to change your contract statuses using status actions, which can be accessed by clicking on the status pill located in the Repository or metadata panel.

Any user with edit access to a record can use status action to change the record’s status.

IMPORTANT
Today, status actions are meant to manually reflect changes to contracts’ statuses as a result of business decisions/other contracts, rather than initiating them.

For example, is if you select Terminate on a record, it will not kick off a termination workflow, or send a termination notice letter to the counterparty. You can, however, relate a record that contains the associated termination notice letter.

This feature is based on the assumption that the event has already happened and the user is now indicating the same in the product.

There are a variety of actions you can take on a record. The available actions on a contract automatically adjust based on the contract’s status and renewal type. Refer to the table and images below for a list of contract status actions and available actions based on a contracts’ status:

Action	Scenario	Outcome	Inputs Needed	Considerations
Terminate	An active contract was terminated and needs to be marked as such.	The current contract becomes inactive terminated. If the termination effective date is in the future the contract is active but the sub status is terminating. The record with the termination contract if it exists is related to the existing contract.	Termination Date, Termination Effective Date and optionally the related termination record.
Supersede	A new contract was signed which replaces the existing contract and makes the existing contract inactive. The superseding contract is the one governing the terms for the relationship going forward.	The current contract becomes inactive on the superseding contract’s effective date, the newly signed contract which superseded it is related to it.	Superseded Date, Superseding contract effective date, and optionally, the related record that the contract has been superseded by.
Cancel Auto-Renewal	The contract will now expire on its expiration date, instead of auto-renewing.	The contract expires and becomes inactive on its expiration date instead of auto-renewing.	None, the cancellation date is automatically stored.
Activate	A contract has expired in the past. For example, it is currently inactive, but another contract is signed which makes the existing contract active again.	Contract becomes active again with a new current effective date/renewal terms	New effective date, and renewal type. Additional inputs based on the renewal type may be required.	Effective Date cannot be left blank If needed, the Expiration Date cannot be less than effective date For renewal types auto-renew and optional extension, the renewal term length has to be populated
Extend	A contract has the renewal type of optional extension and the customer chooses to exercise the extension.	Status changes to extending, and the contract expiration date is moved forward by the renewal term length on the expiration date, times renewed is incremented, and renewals remaining is decremented.	None
Edit Renewal	A user should be allowed to edit the renewal information for an active contract’s agreement, such that the future lifecycle events happen accordingly. For example, when an amendment is signed that changes the next expiration date or increases the number of renewals left for a contract.	The future lifecycle of the contract should follow the updated values rather than the historical	Pre-filled values from current lifecycle data: Expiration Date Renewal Type If Auto-Renewal/Optional Extension then Renewal Term Length, Renewals Remaining, Renewal Opt Out Date	When editing the renewal, if the renewal type is none, auto-renew, optional extension, or other, the expiration date cannot be left blank. For renewal type auto-renew and optional extension, the renewal term length has to be populated The expiration date cannot be less than the effective date of the contract For evergreen contracts, if an effective date is not present, it must first be populated via the metadata panel
Undo	The last action that the user took was invalid.	Rolls back the effects from the last contract action, as if they were never performed.	None

Auto Renewal Images

Terminating Images

Superseding Images

Activating Images

Extend Images

Auto-Renewing Images

Available Actions Based on Contract Status

Refer to the table below for a list of available actions based on a contracts’ status:

Current Status	Renewal Type	Expected Available Actions
Active	None/Blank/Other	Edit Renewal
		Terminate
		Supersede
		Undo
	Auto-Renew	Edit Renewal
		Terminate
		Supersede
		Cancel Autorenewal (only if remaining renewals > 0)
		Undo*
	Optional Extension	Edit Renewal
		Terminate
		Supersede
		Extend (only if remaining renewals > 0)
		Undo
	Evergreen	Edit Renewal
		Terminate
		Supersede
		Undo
Active - Superseding	All Renewal Types	Terminate, Undo
Active - Terminating	All Renewal Types	Undo
Active - Extending	Only possible for Optional Extensions	Edit Renewal
		Terminate
		Supersede
		Undo
Inactive - Expired	None/Blank/Other/Auto-Renew	Edit Renewal
		Supersede
		Activate
		Undo
	Optional Extension	Edit Renewal
		Supersede
		Extend (only if remaining renewals > 0)
		Undo
Inactive - Terminated/Superseded	All Renewal Types	Undo
Inactive - Executed	None/Blank/Other	Edit Renewal
		Terminate
		Supersede
		Undo
	Auto-Renew	Edit Renewal
		Terminate
		Supersede
		Cancel Autorenewal (only if remaining renewals > 0)
		Undo
	Optional Extension	Edit Renewal
		Terminate
		Supersede
		Extend (only if remaining renewals > 0)
		Undo
	Evergreen	Edit Renewal
		Terminate
		Supersede
		Undo

Status Overrides

Errors can occur when you input contract data. Contract statuses are calculated on the basis of contract data and any errors in that data will lead to invalid statuses.

Status overrides provide a way for you to correct these errors and recompute the entire lifecycle of the contract as if the correct information had been entered from the start.

Any time the data in a record’s lifecycle preset property is modified via the metadata panel, API, or metadata import, a recalculation of the contract lifecycle is triggered as if the new values for those properties were the original values for that contract.

NOTE

If you would like to change lifecycle data when amendments happen as a means of reflecting future states, please use contract status actions.