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Overview
Automate and standardize NDAs. Public workflows allow the counterparty to fill out a form and generate their own NDA on YOUR paper. This creates a faster and easier experience and can be executed in minutes.
The goals of this recipe are to:
- Eliminates legal bottlenecks for standard NDAs
- Reduces manual back-and-forth for internal teams
- Provides a consistent, compliant process
- Allows quick scalability for high-volume, low-risk agreements
Use Case
The partnerships team at Classics Inc. frequently needs to execute one-way NDAs with potential collaborators, vendors, or prospects—often before early-stage conversations. These agreements are standard, low-risk, and don’t require legal review in most cases. However, manually managing requests via email slows down the process and creates version control issues.
To streamline this process, Classics Inc. uses a public workflow link for their low-touch NDA. The link is shared on their company website or sent directly by internal stakeholders. External parties can submit their information and initiate the workflow on their own. The NDA template is pre-approved, and the workflow auto-fills the agreement, routes it for signature (if needed), and archives the contract without legal involvement.
What You'll Need
| Features | Public Workflows, Workflow Designer, Formulas |
| Permissions | Admin role, Access to Public Workflows |
| Sample Contract | CTA MNDA.docx |
Supporting Resources
Disclaimer
Ironclad is not a law firm, and this sample template does not constitute or contain legal advice. To evaluate the accuracy, sufficiency, or enforceability of specific contract terms, or the applicability of these materials to your business, you should consult with a licensed attorney. Use of, and access to, this template or any of the resources contained within the site do not create an attorney-client relationship between the user and Ironclad.
This activity is for training purposes only. The workflow you're building is a simplified example of what a Sales Order Form workflow could look like. You’re encouraged to customize it based on your organization’s unique contracting needs.
Be aware that creating properties or conditions as part of this exercise may affect your live Ironclad data. Please proceed with caution if you're working in a non-training environment.
Instructions
To build a low touch NDA using a public workflow, follow the steps below:
- Open Workflow Designer and create a new public workflow configuration.
- Name your workflow Public NDA.
- Select the gear icon next to the workflow name, set workflow owner to yourself and save.
- On the Document tab choose My company’s paper and upload this template and select Save paper source.
- Remove Lifecycle Presets from the left-hand panel.
- Navigate to the Create tab, add the following questions to the Launch Form:
- Click on the “Who is the counterparty” question (note this is Entities) and click delete question.
- Rename Counterparty name question to “What is the legal name of your company?”.
- Rename Counterparty Signer name question to “Signer's name?”.
- Rename Counterparty Signer email question to “Signer’s email?”.
- Add a paragraph response question to the section, title it “What is the purpose of this NDA?” and map it to the "Additional Notes” property.
- Tag your document with Counterparty Name and Effective Date.
- Add a formula to the Effective Date property:
- Click the action button next to the Effective Date property (three dots to the right of this property name on the left sidebar) and click Edit property.
- Click the plus button next to Formula.
- Build the following formula: RelativeDate(Workflow Launch Date,0).
- Select the “x” to close the window. When building formulas, you need to search and select each component, you can’t just copy and paste.
- Click Save. This will remove “Effective Date” from your Launch Form.
- Click the action button next to the Effective Date property (three dots to the right of this property name on the left sidebar) and click Edit property.
- Create a condition by selecting the plus button on the left side bar and select Condition.
- Title condition “Redlines = True”.
- Select “Draft Documents” from the IF drop down menu.
- Define the trigger as is equal to “not generated from template”.
- Save the condition.
- On the Review tab, add a legal approver whose initial approval is required when ‘Redlines = True’.
- Add the Legal group under “Who can approve”.
- Navigate to the Sign tab. Navigate to Settings and select Click to Accept under Signature Acceptance Methods.
- Select the more settings drop down within the Click to Accept section. Turn on Automatically sent after last approval for the acceptance request trigger.
- Turn off “Require verification for all signers”.
- Navigate to Archive Tab, fill in Record type, Static = NDA.
- Set Auto-archive drop down to “Always”.
- Publish and test your workflow with your demo counterparty.
- You can access the launch form by copying the link on the Create tab, or by selecting the three dots next to the name of the workflow in Workflow Designer.
Result
A Public NDA workflow is created in Ironclad. Once the workflow is published, this launch form will be assigned a unique URL that you can share with Counterparties. When the form is submitted, a workflow will be started.