Release: The following functionality will be live on July 23rd. To learn more about the features included in our July release, refer to What's New in Ironclad: July 2026.
Summary
This article will walk you through how to use multiple entities within a workflow. You can use multiple entities in a workflow to capture more than one organization involved in the same contract. This helps you select existing entity records at intake, populate related contract fields, and connect the contract to the right organizations for reporting and relationship tracking.
Use Case
At Classics Inc., the legal operations team uses a third-party paper procurement workflow for three-party agreements. They add separate entity questions for the vendor, partner, and customer so requesters can select each organization from the defined entity lists. This helps the team keep contract data cleaner and makes it easier to report on each relationship.
Prerequisites
| Features | Entities, Workflow Designer |
| Permissions | Admin role OR Repository and Entities = View, edit, and create access to all Record types and Entity types (current and future) AND Workflow Designer = Ability to create and edit all workflow configurations |
Add Entity Questions to Existing Workflow Configuration
Multiple entity questions let you capture each party in a contract separately. For example, you can ask for a vendor, a partner, and a customer in the same launch form. This is useful when one agreement involves more than one outside organization.
When you map entity properties to contract properties, Ironclad can use the selected entity to fill in related contract fields. This saves time and helps keep your contract data consistent.
- Click on the Workflow Designer tab and select the workflow configuration you want to modify. Click on the Create tab.
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Click Add question to form, and then select Entity. An entity question is added to your form.
- Enter the question that will appear on the form. For example, you might say ‘Who is the vendor?’ or Who is the partner?’ to capture the correct entity.
- In the Relationship Type dropdown, you can select which types of entities can be used on the Launch Form. For example, if the question is asking ‘who is the vendor’, you might limit the question to only show vendors in the dropdown.
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Map the entity properties to properties in the contract. You can also add and remove properties from the workflow configuration.
Note: When you map an entity property (e.g., Entity address) to a contract property (e.g., Counterparty address), the question that related to the contract property will automatically populate with entity information if an entity is selected. Users viewing the form question for the mapped entity (ie. What is the counterparty address) will see an indication showing that the field is being populated from the entity. For those questions, you cannot use formulas or different default values.
- While you can lock the entity question or mark it as required, we generally don't recommend either option. These restrictions may cause problems when dealing with counterparties that aren't entities.
- Click Save and Publish.
- Repeat the steps above to add additional entity questions.
Multiple Entities on the Launch Form
When you fill out a launch form with multiple entity questions, you can select an entity from each dropdown. Ironclad then populates the related questions with that entity’s information.
You can also enter information manually or change information that was populated from the entity. You can do this for each entity question on the form.
Multiple Entities on the Workflow
Once you launch your workflow, you can find the entity details in the Properties panel on the right side of the workflow. You can click an entity name to open that entity’s page.
Multiple Entities within the Entities Dashboard
You can open the Entities dashboard, select an entity, and then open the Contracts tab to find contracts tied to that entity. If a contract is linked to more than one entity, the same contract appears in each linked entity’s Contracts tab.
Workflows with Multiple Entities on the Dashboard
If a workflow has multiple entities, they appear in the Entities column on the dashboard. If you do not see an Entities column, you can add one.
Filter by Multiple Entities on the Dashboard
You can also filter by multiple entities. Add one Entity is [name] filter, and then add another Entity filter for the next entity you want to include.
Multiple Entities and Smart Import
When you use Smart Import, Ironclad automatically detects multiple entities (if applicable) and adds them to the contract.
Resources
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