Use Clauses in Workflow Designer

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.

There is a limit of 3,500 tagged clause variants per document. If a workflow configuration includes multiple documents, each document can have up to 3,500 tagged clause variants independently. This count reflects the total number of clause variants applied across all clause tags within the document. Additionally, each individual clause tag can include up to 100 conditional variants.

To learn more about the Global Clause Library, refer to the Global Clause Library Overview.

Use a Clause

Once you have set up your clauses, you can add them to your documents.

1. In Workflow Designer, you can add a clause similar to how you would add a property or condition. In your document, highlight the text that you want to apply the clause to. The clause text can contain one or more properties. From the options that display, click Add Clause.

   

2. The left-hand pane will display the clauses you have already configured. From here, you can select the clause you want to add.

   

3. If you don’t have an existing clause to use, click the + icon located next to Choose a Clause to add a new one. You can select from existing Clause Types or create a new one.

   

4. When selecting a clause, you can choose when it should appear based on a condition. If you want it to appear every time, simply leave it set to Always. To make the clause appear only under specific conditions, set up the desired condition and select to display the clause based on how you've configured it. Finally, click Save.

   

5. The clause will now appear tagged in the document. Once you've reviewed it, save and publish the workflow configuration again.

   

6. After saving and publishing your workflow configuration, return to your clause library, where you’ll be able to see where your clause is being used. Clicking on the number will open a view showing the list of configurations.

   

Edit/Remove a Tagged Clause

You also edit and remove tagged clauses in a workflow configuration.

1. Click on a clause tag in the document.
2. To edit the clause, click Edit. Changes made to clause logic impact all tagged instances of the clause within that workflow configuration. From Workflow Designer, you can only edit conditions affecting a clause or which clause is used. To edit the actual clause language, you’ll need to go to the Global Clause Library view to edit. To learn more, see Manage Clauses/Types in the Clause Library.
3. To remove the clause, click Remove. The tag is removed from the configuration. Note that the tag will still exist in the Global Clause Library for use in other workflow configurations.

Embed a Property into an Existing Clause

To embed a property into an existing clause:

1. Click the Workflow Designer tab.
2. Select the workflow configuration you want to update.
3. Click the Document tab.
4. In the panel on the left, click the Clauses tab.
5. Locate the clause you want to edit and click the three stacked dots next to it. Click Edit clause text in library. A new tab opens with the clause displays within the Global Clause Library.
6. Click Edit located by a pencil icon.
7. Highlight the text you want to make a property, and then click the Add property button indicated by brackets.

8. Click Save > Save and push changes. The update is pushed to your workflow configurations. You can now close the tab.