AbstractUse contracts to es-tablish, document,and track the agree-ments you make withyour accounts. Beforeyou begin using con-tracts, customizecontracts to suit theneeds of your organi-zation.

Getting Started with Contracts

Life-Cycle of a Contract

Best Practices

Approval Requests may needapproval from more than oneperson. For any contract, createas many approval requests asnecessary to receive approval fromthe appropriate persons. See theSalesforce online help for moreinformation.

Use Salesforce to handle your internal process for contracts: give users contract privileges, designcontract status values for different stages in the contract life-cycle, and design page layouts fordifferent types of contract administrators. Before you begin using contracts, review a basic contractapproval process:

• Create a contract

◊ A contract is an agreement defining the terms of doing business with another party. Initially,the status of a new contract is “Draft.”

• Create an Approval Request

◊ An approval request is a request to someone in your organization that has the “ApproveContracts” permission. The recipient can approve or reject an approval request. Sending theinitial approval request changes the contract status to “In Approval Process.”

• Activate the contract

◊ An approved contract is activated when it is finalized and no longer changeable. Approvinga contract changes its status to “Activated.”

Give Users Contract PrivilegesBest Practices

• Update your profiles so thatthey display the Contractstab.

• Assign contract permissionsto the appropriate profilessuch as: Sales Reps - “Edit”on Contracts Sales Mgr -“Approve Contracts” SalesOps - “Activate Contracts”

Your system administrator’s profile contains the following contract permissions:

• “User Permissions on Contracts”

◊ Create, edit, and delete contracts that are not yet activated

• “Approve Contracts”

◊ Apply an approved status to a contract

• “Activate Contracts”

◊ Activate contracts, create, edit, and delete contracts

GETTING STARTED WITH CONTRACTS

Last updated: October 9, 2011

• “Delete Activated Contracts”

◊ Delete contracts regardless of status, activate, create, and edit contracts

Organizations that use products also receive a new standard profile: Contract Manager. This profileincludes edit, approve, and activate contract permissions as well as all the permissions in the StandardUser profile.

Customize Page LayoutsTip

• To modify contract pagelayouts, click Your Name> Setup > Customize >Contracts > Page Layouts.

• To add the Contracts relatedlist to account page layouts,click Your Name > Setup> Customize > Accounts >Page Layouts.

• To modify the contract minipage layout, click Mini PageLayout on the contractlayout page.

• If your users need access to different contract fields, create multiple page layouts for your contractsto make the necessary fields available to the appropriate users. For example, your managementteam may need to change the status of contracts but your sales team does not need access to thestatus field. To satisfy each group, create two page layouts and make the status field availableon one. Then assign the page layout with the status field to the profile(s) for your managementteam.

• Add the Contracts related list to the appropriate accounts page layouts. Then, your users cancreate a contract for a specific account from the Contracts related list on a selected account.

• See Create Custom Links for instructions on how you can set up your Opportunities pagelayouts so that users can create contracts from an opportunity.

• You can define mini page layouts for contracts to display specific contract information in themini view of the Console tab. Mini page layouts contain a subset of the items in existing contractpage layouts.

Customize FieldsTip

To modify contract fields, clickYour Name > Setup >Customize > Contracts >Fields.

• Design contract fields so that your users can track contract details. For example, customize theStatus field to include the steps in your contract business process. Each Status value mustbe in one of three standard categories: Draft, In Approval Process, or Activated. Use these statuscategories when creating custom reports or views.

• Select which standard and custom fields to track on the Contracts History related list. Trackedentries include the date, time, nature of the change, and who made the change.

• Create contract custom fields to hold data specific to your business process.

Use Record TypesTip (Enterprise and

Unlimited Editions only)

To access contract record types,click Your Name > Setup >Customize > Contracts >Record Types.

• If you have different groups that follow different business processes, use record types to controlwhich contract picklist values are available to different users. For example, your organizationmay only have an approval process for certain contracts. If so, make your approval picklist valuesavailable to the group that follows an approval process.

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Getting Started with Contracts

• Use record types to display different page layouts for different contracts. For example, contractswith partners may need to display different fields than contracts with clients. If so, create a pagelayout for partners and one for clients. Then, create a contract record type for partners and onefor clients. Associate the partner record type with the partner page layout and associate theclient record type with the client page layout. Contract records assigned to the partner recordtype will display using the partner page layout.

Set Up Your Contract WorkflowTip (Enterprise and

Unlimited Editions only)

To set up contract workflowrules, click Your Name >Setup > Create > Workflow &Approvals.

Create workflow rules to assign tasks or send emails when your contracts meet certain conditions.For example, you may want to assign a task for the contract owner whenever a renewal isapproaching. You could also schedule a workflow rule to send an email when the contract statuschanges.

Create Custom LinksNote

• You may have to add a fewsteps to this procedure if youhave enabled record types forcontracts.

• Your new contract will beassociated with the accounton the selected opportunity.

• Customize your custom linkfurther to auto-select morefields on the contract. Seethe online help on customlinks to do this.

If you have added the Contract related list to your accounts page layouts, you can create a newcontract from an account. You can also create a new contract from an opportunity by creating acustom link for your opportunity page layouts.

1. Copy the URL used when creating a new contract.

a. Select an account.b. Click New from the Contract related list.c. Select the text in the address bar of your browser.d. Select Ctrl+C to copy it.

2. Create an opportunity custom link using the URL copied.

a. Click Your Name > Setup > Customize > Opportunities > Custom Links > New.b. Enter a name and click Next.c. Paste the URL in the Link URL box.d. Select the text after accid= and replace it with the merge field: {!Opportunity_Account_ID}.e. Follow the rest of the custom links as usual.f. Save your new custom link.

3. Remember to add the custom link to your opportunity page layouts.

Inform users that they can select an opportunity and click this link to create a contract for theaccount listed on the opportunity.

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Getting Started with Contracts