How to share drafts and other documents

Why share your Contractbook documents?

Sharing documents safely with the relevant stakeholders increases both transparency and collaboration.

1. Allow contract recipients to fill in editable fields: There is no need to gather tons of information from contract recipients anymore. Simply share a contract draft with the recipient before you finally send it for signature and allow them to fill in editable fields themselves.
2. Get your contract reviewed before signing: Do you need your lawyer or a colleague to review a contract before you sign it? Just share the draft with them and choose view-only permission.
3. Give third parties access to already send for signature contracts.

Share and revoke access to a draft - video guide:

The process described further down in the article is summarized in the following short video. Here you can see how to share your draft with the chosen group of collaborators, and how to eventually revoke their access:

If you prefer step-by-step guidance, just keep reading for more insights. 

How to share a draft?

Open the draft you want to share with external collaborators and click on the highlighted blue Share button at the top right-hand corner:

You can now customize the sharing process by adding a single email address or choosing to share with multiple recipients at once by clicking on Add collaborator. 

From the right-hand drop-down window available for each collaborator, you will also be able to manage the editing permissions of the draft by choosing "Can edit the draft", "Can fill in fields in the draft" or "Can read the draft":

You can also allow or disallow your collaborators to send the draft for signatures by controlling the toggle "Allow sending for signatures" to be on or off as follows. 

You can further down customize your email invitation message and press Share to confirm. 

The draft has now been successfully shared. The person/people you shared it with will receive an email notification with your customized message and a direct link to access the draft. They will be able to perform only the actions you have permitted them to while sharing the document with them.

Can I give editing permissions on a draft sent for signature? 

It is not possible to allow editing permissions once a draft is sent for signature.

As a workaround in these cases when you need to do so, you can create a new draft from the pending contract, delete the original pending contract and proceed with sharing the new draft with the correct collaborators. 

Can I send a shared with me draft for signature?

If a draft is shared with you allowing you either of the three possible editing permissions ("Can edit the draft", "Can fill in fields in the draft" or "Can read the draft") and "Allow sending for signatures", you can then initiate the signature process without any restrictions.

If a new comment on the draft or any other change to its content is made, you can still start the signature process without having the original owner of the document approve or review any of these changes.

How to share a contract?

You can also choose to share contracts that are not yet fully signed yet (still with a Pending status).  

Open the contract from the Pending section of your Documents tab you want to share and click Share at the top right-hand corner. The difference between sharing a draft and a contract is that in this case your collaborators will only be allowed to view the contract without amending any changes to its contents.

Note: Already signed contracts cannot be shared. 

Here is a short video showing how to share a contract with external parties:

Now that you have successfully shared your draft or a contract, how do you keep a track of that? And how do you stop sharing, once it is not relevant anymore?

The following two functionalities are the same for drafts and contracts.

Who is a document (draft or contract) shared with? 

You can see who a Contractbook document is shared with when the document is opened. In case external collaborators have been invited to the documents, their initials will appear at the top bar.

Revoke access 

If you want to stop sharing a document, first open it and then click on the highlighted in blue Share button located at the top right-hand corner. This time the pop-up window will allow you to remove the email/s of the person/people you no longer want to share the document with by clicking on the small grey "X" sign to the right.

This is what the pop-up window will look like in a draft mode:

And this is going to be the view in an opened pending contract:

Can I share drafts and other documents automatically?

You can use Contractbook in-app Automation Builder and configure your own Share a document automated workflow which will save you time and manual work in all your future contract management initiatives. 

All you need is access to our Foundation plan and this guidance we have created for your ease of use.

If you still need additional information or assistance, reach out to us at any time via our Online Support Chat or by sending us an email.