Opentext-So-Xpression-For Contracts-En
Opentext-So-Xpression-For Contracts-En
Opentext-So-Xpression-For Contracts-En
OpenText™ xPression™
for Contracts
Streamline contract creation, approval
and negotiation while reducing risk
for both businesses and consumers. Common examples of contracts include insur-
ance policies, lease and loan agreements, customer service contracts, health benefit create templates and easily generate
contracts, mobile phone plan agreements and purchase agreements. contracts
All of these documents share common characteristics—every phrase, term and clause • Reduce risk with complete audit
must protect businesses from possible litigation while simultaneously providing consum- trail of entire contract creation and
ers with the specific, and often personalized, products and services for which they have negotiating process
paid. Small mistakes can expose companies to huge liabilities. • Improve productivity by applying
Manual processes put companies at risk business rules to document content
Even though contracts require a certain degree of sensitivity and scrutiny, many organi-
and processes—automate contract
zations still use manual, error-prone processes for producing them. Contract managers,
creation, approval, generation and
for example, often use Microsoft Word templates on their desktops to copy, paste and
®
execution workflow
edit existing content to create new contracts. Unfortunately, not only is there no guar- • Ensure immediate access to
antee that the correct templates are used, but cutting and pasting content can often contracts and supporting documents
incorporate the wrong information. through robust tracking and
To make matters more challenging, some contracts require negotiations that may last searching capabilities, no matter
weeks or even months, with different versions of the contract going back and forth where they are within the process
among the counterparties. In many organizations, the negotiation process is primarily • Enforce company standards for the
paper-based and manual, involving multiple printed versions with handwritten revisions entire contract processt
that are faxed back and forth. This process wastes precious time and resources, is often
error-prone and also environmentally wasteful. Moreover, it can be challenging to main-
tain an accurate history of manual negotiations, including the many contract versions
produced during the process.
E N T E R P R I S E I N F O R M AT I O N M A N A G E M E N T
SOLUTION OVERVIEW OPENTEXT XPRESSION FOR CONTRACTS
Streamlining the contracts process language from previously negotiated agreements with changes
OpenText xPression for Contracts streamlines the creation, in standard contract templates. The user has complete control
approval and negotiation of all types of contracts. It provides to accept or reject any updates to standard contract language
easy-to-use, powerful tools for document designers, contract or structure when comparing the new or existing contract to the
managers and IT operations staff to streamline the entire contract current template. This feature substantially saves time and elimi-
creation and negotiation cycle. nates error-prone manual steps when renegotiating contracts. In
addition to renewing contracts, the feature is also useful for creat-
The xPression software suite is built on an open, component-
ing new contracts based on existing ones that are similar.
based architecture using Java EE and XML standards. It integrates
with existing business processes, workflow tools and business Eliminate cumbersome manual steps
intelligence systems to create and deliver real-time, interactive and xPression offers a paperless contract negotiation environment,
high-volume communications—personalized and customized for removing manual steps and reducing or eliminating the need for
each recipient. physical storage of paper documents.
Familiar tool for authors and contract managers Here’s one example of how it works:
For document designers, xPression provides OpenText xDesign, 1. Create new contract: The contract manager, Michelle, starts
a rules-based document template design tool that incorporates with a contract template containing preapproved content stored
Microsoft Word for content authoring and provides features in xPression. She loads contract data into a web-based interface
for variability, version control, sharing and testing of contract and automatically generates the initial contract draft. For existing
templates. For contract managers, xPression features OpenText customers, she uses the carry forward feature to review differenc-
xRevise, a web-based interface that enables users to retrieve and es from the prior year’s contract side-by-side with the standard
view contract data, automatically generate a contract draft and template. Michelle saves the initial contract draft into xPression.
employ a Word-based editing environment for baseline contract 2. Begin negotiation process: In the legal department, David
revisions using a searchable library of preapproved terms and accesses the draft contract and searches xPression’s library
clauses. In addition, xRevise supports side-by-side comparisons for preapproved clauses and makes other necessary edits. The
of contract versions and maintains a complete history of contract changes are highlighted in the contract using standard revision
versions during the entire negotiation and approval process. tracking available in Microsoft Word.
Web-based administration for IT operations staff 3. Track revision history: David saves the revised contract
For IT operations staff, xPression provides web-based administra- version into xPression, where the changes are automatically iden-
tion and monitoring tools to configure the software, organize and tified, creating a robust version history. The changes are associat-
manage contract templates, manage data sources, define output ed with the appropriate clauses within the contract. For example,
and distribution profiles and control production processes. the addition of a word in a clause is tracked and versioned as a
revision to that clause.
Support for unique contract requirements
4. Approval workflow: When Michelle creates a new version of
Depending on the type of contract, there may be special require-
the contract based on David’s revisions, she may have to circulate
ments for how it is finalized. For negotiated contracts—such as ISDA
the new version through the workflow system to various approv-
master agreements, financial margin agreements or health group
ing parties (legal, supervisor, etc.). Once approved, she can send
benefits contracts—xPression provides the capability to support
the new version to David. Michelle can generate reports to iden-
the back-and-forth revisions that occur during negotiations. For
tify changes to data values, terms and clauses, when they were
contracts that do not require negotiation—such as insurance poli-
changed and by whom. Any changed data can be extracted from
cies, loan and mortgage contracts, services contracts and tele-
the final contract and imported into the system of record.
communications plan contracts—the software’s straight through
processing provides full automation, saving time and resources. 5. Generate and store final contract: Steps 2-4 are repeated
until each party is satisfied with the contract. Once the contract
Carry forward feature saves time, reduces errors
negotiations are complete, xPression publishes the final contract in
When renewing negotiated contracts, the contract manager can multiple formats, including PDF for easy email and electronic distri-
start from an existing contract or use a standard template as the bution, print for traditional postal mail and/or a version for archiving
baseline. While existing contracts contain some desired custom- that includes attributes to comply with regulatory requirements.
izations, they may be missing important regulatory changes, addi-
tions, subtractions and changes in customer information. The
xPression carry forward feature intelligently combines the desired
E N T E R P R I S E I N F O R M AT I O N M A N A G E M E N T
SOLUTION OVERVIEW OPENTEXT XPRESSION FOR CONTRACTS
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