Contract Requests — User Guide

Contract Requests is where a pre-award or pre-execution document gets drafted: an NDA, a teaming agreement, a subcontract, whatever your organization templates. You answer a short set of questions and get the assembled draft back with its own contract number.

Who uses it: anyone who needs a document drawn up before there is a contract to administer.

Finding it: the left nav, Contract Requests.

Who can do what

Two rows under Contract Requests in Admin → Permissions decide it:

The row	At Read Write it lets a person
Submit Requests	Raise a request — the New request button, the form, and adding a person or company the form needs. They see the requests they raised and no one else's.
All Tabs	Run the module — every request in your organization, Approval rules, Types, Templates and Import template, and moving a request through its life. Running it includes raising requests.

A role at Read Only on All Tabs, with no Submit Requests access, can open the page and see requests raised in its name, and nothing more. A role with no row for Submit Requests takes its All Tabs answer, so the people who run the module never need a second grant to raise a request.

The one path through the screen

Two controls on this path tell you where you are rather than what to do.

The party dropdown reads Pick an entity first until an entity is chosen, and Select… once one is. That is a prerequisite, not an empty list — the options cannot be built until Arcvue knows which of your entities is asking.

Generate draft produces the document from the template and the answers. Nothing is generated until you press it, so leaving the page with the form filled leaves no draft behind.

There is deliberately only one:

1. New contract request opens the form.
2. Pick a Contracting entity and a Document type.
3. Answer the questions that appear.
4. Submit, and the assembled draft comes back carrying its contract number.

The questions are not fixed, and this page does not know any of them by name. Every field — its label, its type, whether it is required, what options it offers — comes from the template you selected. Adding a new document type, or a template with different questions, is a matter of data rather than a code change, which is why two document types can ask completely different things and neither is special-cased.

Some answers arrive pre-filled. Your own email, name and title come from your account. Where the document names somebody on your side as the point of contact, the form offers your own team instead of an empty box: choose the colleague and their title, email and phone fill in below.

Pre-filled is a head start, not an answer. Every one stays editable, and you should read them rather than assume: the pre-fill is a convenience, and the document is your responsibility.

Naming your point of contact

The list is your own side only — colleagues with an Arcvue login, plus anyone you have added to your contact directory. Nobody outside your company can appear here, so a subcontractor's or an auditor's login, and an outside contact in your directory, are both kept out of your side's signature block.

Add a person opens a short form for somebody who is not on the list: New contact full name, New contact job title, New contact email and New contact phone. Save person stores them in your directory and picks them straight away, so their email and phone fill the fields below without anyone typing them — and they are on the list for every request after this one. Only a name is required; the rest can follow later. If somebody already holds that email address, Arcvue refuses and names them, so you choose the entry that exists rather than creating a second spelling of one person.

Pick Someone else to type a name once without storing it, which is the right answer for a one-off. Choose from your team instead puts the list back and clears what you typed, so the control and the answer can never disagree about who was chosen.

A colleague's phone comes from their user record under Admin → Users, beside their email, and stays blank until somebody records it there. A person you added to the directory carries their own phone, so it does not wait on the roster. A blank number never hides anyone from the list.

Cancel closes the form without creating anything.

Naming the other party's company

Where a template asks for the business on the other side, the field offers the companies you have already recorded rather than an empty box. Choosing one brings its short name, address and state of incorporation with it, so the details nobody has to hand are not what holds a request up.

Add a company opens a short form: New company name, New company short name, New company address and New company state of incorporation. Save company stores it and picks it straight away. Only the name is required. If a company is already on file under that name, Arcvue refuses and names it — the point of the list is that one company is chosen rather than re-entered, and two spellings defeat that as surely as no list at all.

Pick A different company to type a name once without storing it, which is right for a one-off. Choose from your companies instead puts the list back and clears what you typed.

This list is separate from your people directory on purpose: the person you deal with at a company changes while the company does not, and one list would force either to be re-entered whenever the other moved.

Your document types

Types opens the list of documents your team can raise a request for. The six Arcvue starts you with are a suggestion, not a fixed set — add the documents you actually use, and retire the ones you do not.

Add a type asks three things:

• Type name — what your team calls this document. Two live types cannot share a name; Arcvue refuses and names the one that holds it, because two identical entries on the request form are indistinguishable to whoever has to pick one.
• Type order on the form — a number, low first. Use it to put the documents you raise most at the top.
• This type commits money — see below.

Save type adds it. It appears on the request form immediately, and you can import a template for it whenever the document is ready.

What "commits money" decides

Tick it when an executed agreement of this type obliges you to spend — a subcontract does, a non-disclosure agreement does not. It is the one answer that changes what the system will let you do: only a type that commits money can be linked to the purchase order that funds it, once a request reaches Fully Executed.

A type that has never been asked the question reads Not set rather than No. That is deliberate — a type Arcvue seeded before this question existed has no answer on record, and showing it as No would put words in your mouth. Until it is answered it behaves as No, so nothing links by accident. Edit type is where you answer it.

Renaming, retiring and bringing a type back

Edit type changes the name, the order, and the commitment answer. Renaming is safe: requests already raised under the type follow the new name, because it is the same kind of document and only the name was wrong. Documents already generated are untouched — a draft carries the answers it was built from.

Retire takes a type off the request form. It asks first: Retire type confirms, Keep type backs out. Nothing is deleted — retired types keep their own section on this screen, and every request ever raised under one still opens normally with the questions it was asked.

Bring back puts a retired type back on the form. It is refused if a live type has since taken the name; rename that one first.

The list, and what a status means

Each request carries a status badge:

Status	What it means
Request	Submitted, nothing drafted yet.
Draft	A draft document exists.
In negotiation	Out with the counterparty.
Pending approval	Waiting on an internal approval.
Partially executed	Signed by one side.
Fully executed	Signed by everyone. It is a contract now.
Void	Abandoned. Kept, not deleted.

Partially executed is the one to watch. It means you have signed and they have not, or the reverse — an obligation that may already be running while the file says it is not finished. Nothing else on this list is time-sensitive in the same way.

View request opens one. Back to list returns. Each row also shows Requested by — who submitted the request. Requestors always see their own requests and the people who run the module see all of them, so a request missing from your list was submitted by someone else.

Inside a request

The detail panel shows the document type, the legal entity, the contract number, the current status, and who requested it — then every answer, under the labels the template itself used.

Download .docx and Download PDF appear only for the formats that actually exist for that request. A missing button means that format was never generated, not that the download failed.

Move status advances the request. It is only shown to people who can change it; if you can read a request but not act on it, you will not see the control at all rather than see one that refuses you.

Close shuts the panel.

When a request is not yours to see

Opening a request you are not entitled to gives you "This request is not available to you" and a Back to list.

That wording is deliberate and it is the same answer whether the request does not exist or you simply cannot see it. Distinguishing the two would tell you something about a document you are not entitled to know about — a contract's existence is itself information.

Importing a template for a type

The control is Import template, and it reads Checking… while it validates the file. It is a one-time act per document type — importing the approved template is what makes that type requestable at all, so a type nobody has imported for cannot be requested however complete its settings look.

Import a template gives a document type the file it generates from. It takes two things:

• Template file (.docx) — the document itself, with its placeholders.

• Questions — built for you: Arcvue reads the template's merge tags and shows one row per tag, in the order the document first uses each one. The first required plain-text question is what the request list shows as the request's Counterparty, so it should be the other party's legal name, which most agreements name first. Adjust each Question label, its Answer type (text, date, email, phone, US state, or multi-line), whether it is Required, and its Pre-fill — None (the requester types the answer), or one that fills itself:

  Pre-fill	Fills from
  Requestor name & title	the signed-in requester's own account
  Requestor email	the same
  Chosen colleague — name	the colleague the requester picks, name alone
  Chosen colleague — name & title	the same colleague, name and job title
  Chosen colleague — email	that colleague's email
  Chosen colleague — phone	that colleague's work phone

  Every pre-filled answer stays editable. There is no schema to author.

  The two Chosen colleague — name spellings are the ones that OFFER the list, and exactly one question in a template may use either of them. The email and phone options ride along with whoever it chose. A Chosen colleague — email or Chosen colleague — phone with nothing choosing the colleague is refused at import and at edit, because it would render as a pre-fill that never fills — a control that looks answered and never is.

The questions grid is what the request form is built from, so it decides what a requester sees. Import refuses a template whose tags and questions disagree in either direction, so a generated draft can never carry a silent blank — still, check a new type by requesting one and reading the draft before anyone relies on it.

Telling the contracts team something the template does not ask

Below the questions on a new request there is Anything else the contracts team should know. It is optional and free text: an unusual term, a specification, a caveat, anything the template has no question for.

It travels with the request. Contracts staff read and revise it as Note from the requestor, under the From the requestor heading on the detail panel; the same name marks the row in the request list. They can correct it there as the position changes -- a note nobody can revise is a note people stop trusting, and an unusual term is exactly what turns out half-right after the first call with the counterparty. The request list marks which requests carry one, so nobody has to open each request to find out.

It is not written into the document. Every question above it is a merge tag that lands in the paper; this one deliberately does not. If a term has to appear in the agreement, say so here and the contracts team drafts it.

Changing what a template asks

Edits to the question set are held until you press Save questions, which reads Saving… while it writes.

Templates (header button) lists every document type your team can request and the questions each one asks. Edit questions opens the same grid as import: change a question's wording, its answer type, whether it is Required, and what it pre-fills from. No re-upload, and it takes effect on the next request.

This is where a question that requesters cannot answer yet stops holding requests up. An address, a phone number, a solicitation number that does not exist before the solicitation does — clear Required and the request goes through with the field blank, to be filled in later by whoever does know.

What it will not do is add or remove a question, and that is deliberate: a question IS a merge tag inside the .docx, so changing the set means a new document. Import it as a new version instead. The screen does not offer it, and the server refuses it either way, naming the tag in both directions.

Editing questions does not create a new template version. The version records which paper produced a request, and the paper has not changed — every earlier request still points at exactly the document it was built from.

Taking a template out of service

Templates → Retire stops a document type being offered on the request form. Use it when a template was imported twice, or when a document is no longer one your team should be raising.

Retire asks first. Retire template confirms; Keep template backs out.

Retiring does not delete anything. Every request already raised keeps the template it was built from and still opens with the questions it was asked, so the record of what was drafted stays intact. What changes is only what the form offers from now on. If a document type ends up with no template at all, it stops appearing on the form rather than offering a version nobody can fill in.

To bring a retired document back, import it again — that starts a fresh version and leaves the old one in the record.

Linking to a request

A link to a specific request carries it as a query parameter — ?id= — rather than as a path segment.

A path-shaped link will silently open the list instead. It does not error; it just lands you somewhere else. Copy the address bar rather than constructing a link by hand.

Approvals

Add rule creates an approval rule and reads Adding… while it saves.

Approval rules (header button, contracts staff) is your signing policy stated once. Each rule names a document type — or All types — an optional Value threshold, and the Approver role whose sign-off it takes, exactly as that role key appears in your permission matrix. No rules configured means no gates: every request generates and can be sent as before.

A request that matches a rule generates its draft normally but shows Pending approval, and cannot go out until someone holding the named role approves it from the detail panel. The requestor never clears their own gate, even with the right role. Return with note sends it back instead — the Return note says what needs to change, and it stays on the request so the why is never lost. Removing a rule immediately clears anything only it was holding; the policy in force is always the current list.

A Value threshold reads the template field marked as the contract value, so it only fires for templates that have one. A valueless document like an NDA is gated by a type rule, not a dollar one.

Sending for signature

Once a draft is ready — and approved, where a rule requires it — Send for signature puts it in front of the counterparty through the signature provider. List the Signers, in signing order, each with a name and the email they sign from; the request email comes from the provider, not from anyone's mailbox. While an envelope is out, the request shows who has it and since when, and hand status moves are blocked — Cancel envelope is the way out if terms change mid-round. Signed and declined outcomes record themselves on the request; a decline carries the signer's reason.

E-signature is configured per organization by an administrator; until it is, the send control does not appear and drafts travel the way they do today.

Term dates

When the signed paper comes back, contracts staff record Executed on and Expires on in the detail panel. The expiration date drives renewal reminders; leave it blank for agreements without a fixed term, and clear it if an amendment changes the term.

One-click signatures — marking the signature lines

For placed, one-click signing, the template marks its own signature lines: type {{esign_signature_1}} where your organization's representative signs and {{esign_signature_2}} where the counterparty signs (add {{esign_date_1}} / {{esign_date_2}} beside them if the block has a date line — those fill automatically when each party signs). Set the text color to white so the markers never show on the finished document. They are anchors, not questions: the import grid will not ask them, and at send time each signer is taken straight to their own line — both signatures land on the template's signature page, and no extra page is ever appended. When a template places fields this way, Send for signature requires exactly that many signers, in the order the fields are numbered.

The financial record (Subcontracts)

A fully executed Subcontract authorizes money that lives somewhere else: the purchase order in Accounting > Procurement carrying its ceiling, funded amount, and payments. The Financial record band appears on a fully executed Subcontract request. Link purchase order opens a picker of the organization's POs; the chosen number stays on the request along with who linked it and when. Unlink withdraws a wrong link at any status. The agreement remains the legal record and the PO remains the money — linking ties them together, it never merges them.

When something looks wrong

What you see	What it usually is
The form asks unexpected questions	The questions come from the template. A different document type asks different things.
A Download PDF button is missing	That format was not generated for this request.
No New request button	Your role does not hold Submit Requests at Read Write. Your administrator grants it in Admin → Permissions.
No Move status control	You can read this request but do not run the module — that takes All Tabs at Read Write.
Pending approval on a request you submitted	An approval rule matches it. The named role approves or returns it; you cannot clear your own gate.
A dollar rule never fires	The template has no field marked as the contract value. Gate that type with a type rule instead.
"This request is not available to you"	It is not yours to see, or it does not exist — the answer is the same on purpose.
A link opened the list instead of a request	The link was path-shaped. Use the ?id= form from the address bar.
Something failed to load	Try again re-runs the request that failed.

Related

• Contract Register — where a contract goes once it is fully executed.
• Contract Closeout — the other end of the same life.