This article will walk you through how to manage clauses and types in the Clause Library. This includes how to access the Clause Library, edit types and clauses, delete types and clauses, and bulk import clauses.
A clause, or clause type (also called a provision), is a section, phrase, or paragraph in a legal document—such as a contract, deed, will, or constitution—that addresses a specific point. Clauses are typically 8 words or more and are written as one or more sentences.
In Ironclad, you can manage your global clauses through the Global Clause Library. Now, instead of having each clause live only within a specific workflow configuration, you can use global clauses to manage and edit clauses across multiple workflow configurations. Any changes you make to global clauses either from the Clause Library or from Workflow Designer will be automatically applied to the relevant workflow configurations within Ironclad.
The Clause Library consists of two main components: types and clauses.
- Types are the category labels.
- Clauses contain the actual text.
To learn more about the Global Clause Library, refer to the Global Clause Library Overview.
Access the Clause Library
- Click on your profile icon located in the top right corner of Ironclad. Navigate to Company Settings > Clause Library.
- Note that only Administrators or users in a Group with Global Clause Library permission will have access to this page.
Edit a Clause
When you edit an existing clause, the clause is updated wherever it appears across your workflow configurations only. This does not include in progress, completed, or archived workflows.
- In the clause library, click on the Clauses tab.
- Click on the clause you want to edit, and then click the Edit icon (indicated by a pencil) in the top right corner.
- Edit the Type, Name, and/or Clause Text, and then click Save. If the clause is currently used in a workflow configuration, the Type will not be editable.
- Enter a reason for the change. Click Save and push changes.
- The clause is updated wherever it appears across your workflow configurations.
Updating a clause in the Clause Library will update the affected workflow configurations, but changes won’t be published automatically. This allows you to queue updates and publish them when ready. To apply the changes, workflow configuration owners must manually publish each affected configuration. Only contracts launched after publishing will reflect the updated language.
Edit a Type
Editing a Clause Type by changing its name or description will change that Clause Type’s name and description in the Clause Library and where clauses appear in Workflow Designer.
- In the clause library, click on the Type tab.
- Click on the type you want to edit, and then click the Edit icon (indicated by a pencil) in the top right corner.
- Edit the Name, and/or Description, and then click Save.
Delete a Clause/Type
- In the clause library, click on the Type or Clause tab.
- Click on the type or clause you want to delete, and then click the Delete icon (indicated by a trash can) in the top right corner.
- If you are deleting a type, you must first reassign any clauses to a different type. A type with assigned clauses cannot be deleted.
- If you are deleting a clause, confirm the deletion and click Delete. This action cannot be undone.
NOTE: If you are deleting a clause that is used in a workflow configuration, you must first remove that clause from the workflow configuration.
Bulk Import Clauses
- In the clause library, click on the three stacked dots located in the top right corner.
- Click Import.
- Using the template provided, Edit the Clause Type, Clause Name, and/or Clause Text, and then click Save.
- Only .xlsx format is accepted with a max file size of 5 mb (about 20,000 rows).
- All clauses should be on one sheet, with one clause per row and no blank rows between clauses.
- Complex formatting like lists and multi-formatting is not supported.
- For each row in the file, a clause variant with the corresponding clause type is created.