Contract · ProcurementTech · Web

In progress · NDA

New features for a live contract management module

I joined the team behind a CLM module in an enterprise procurement suite after launch. Now I’m designing its framework agreements, tasks and reusable clauses.

Role
Senior Product Designer
Team
Stakeholders, product manager, business analysts, other designers, developers
Platform
Web
Users
Procurement, legal and business teams

Overview

Challenge. The module is already live. Now it needs to cover more of the real work procurement teams do: framework agreements with contracts under them, tasks around each contract, and reusable clause text.

My role. I’m designing these three features from start to finish, together with stakeholders, the product manager and business analysts.

Status. All three features are in development. I’ll update this page with results once they ship.

Context

It’s a contract lifecycle management (CLM) module inside a larger procurement suite. It covers the whole life of a contract, from the first request and drafting to signing, renewal and archiving. Legal, procurement and business teams all work in the same contracts. Some people use it every day, others only now and then, and every feature has to make sense to both.

Framework agreements

Companies often sign a framework agreement with a supplier and then run many separate contracts under it. Without a link in the system, people have to remember which contract belongs to which agreement.

What I’m designing

  • Linking existing contracts to a framework agreement as its child contracts.
  • An overview page for the framework agreement with its key details and all of its child contracts.

Task management

Every contract goes through reviews, approvals and other steps owned by different people. When all of that lives in email and spreadsheets, steps get missed.

What I’m designing

  • Tasks inside each contract, with owners and due dates.
  • Clear statuses, with overdue tasks flagged.
  • Tasks from all contracts on the dashboard, without opening each contract.

Clause creation

The same contract wording gets copied from one document to the next, and small differences slip in.

What I’m designing

  • Reusable clauses that work as building blocks for contracts and templates.
  • Templates built from those clauses. Every placeholder in a clause, like a start date or the supplier’s legal name, becomes a question in the template’s questionnaire, with a live preview of the document next to it.
  • The goal is the same wording across the company and much less copy-pasting.

Metrics

Contract is still in development, so its metrics are prototype validation results.

+2 users

Assign a reviewer and due date inside the contract

Tasks embedded in the record instead of a separate tab

8 of 8 from 6 of 88 procurement users from 3 client companies, round 2 vs round 1

+2 users

Build a template from library clauses

Templates assembled from library clauses

7 of 8 from 5 of 8Same users, round 2 vs round 1

Domain coverage: 6 core entities, 9 contract statuses and 14 exception paths, such as rejection and termination, mapped and designed.

How I work

  • I go through requirements, logic and UX questions with stakeholders, the product manager and business analysts. When we see things differently, we agree before handoff.
  • The suite has an established design system. Anything new I propose has to fit it and be agreed with the other designers.
  • It’s a legal domain. Every status and label has to mean exactly one thing.