Share document in-app automation

How to automatically share a new contract draft with others?

You can automatically share a new draft with your collaborators as soon as it has been created (as an example which we will configure in this article, but you can also select to share the document when a Draft is updated or a Contract is signed). 

Example Use Case:

• An "Employment Contract" is Signed by you (as the document owner) and a new hire
• Then automatically Share the document with Full access given to your HR assistant 
• And automatically Create a reminder for salary negotiation assigned to the same HR Assistant 

Here is a short video tutorial of the automation setup, and a step-by-step guide follows right after:

Click on Automations tab from the main menu and then on the blue button Create new at the upper right-hand corner.

How can I configure the trigger event?

You will be redirected to a pop-up window where you can customize the automation's setup. To begin with, select the Draft is created trigger from the drop-down menu. This will automatically open a configuration window to the right in which you can define which contract draft should start the automation.

You can assign the trigger to every draft you create in general or only a draft created from a specific template. For our automation flow, we will use Every draft from a specific template:

If you have selected the second option as we did, you can then use the search bar to find the template you want to use.
In our example, we will pick "Employment contract":

If you have several templates sharing the same name, you can click on the small eye icon and this will directly open it for review.

After choosing the correct template, confirm by clicking on Save and the next step in the automation setup will be displayed.

How can I delete the trigger in the Automation Builder? 

At the very bottom of each trigger configuration window, you have the option to delete only this specific trigger and not the complete automation:

How can I configure the action event?

This step covers the action that the automation trigger you have just defined will automate. You can use the search bar to locate the option Share a document:

A new configuration window will now appear on the right side of the screen. Here you will be able to define the parameters of the shared draft, including collaborators, their permissions, and the email message sent to them:

• Document ID configuration:

The first detail of the automation configuration is the Document ID of the document which will be used to execute the automation. It will be automatically fetched and available in the required field under the Share a document window:

• Email message configuration:

You can then create a customized message which will be sent via email to the collaborators you share the draft with. 
In order to compose the message, you can type in any text input and combine that with the use of variables (Data fields) from the document used in the trigger event (draft is created), or use any Party or Signee variable.
You can do that by searching and populating the variables across the message field:

Here is the message that the collaborators of our shared draft will receive via email along with the document:

• Collaborators and their permissions setup:

Once you have customized the message, you can then proceed with specifying the collaborators who will receive the shared document and their Permissions in the draft:

Note: Just as sharing a draft or a contract manually, edit permissions will be granted only if the selected document is a draft. For pending and signed documents, collaborators will be granted view permission only:

You can utilize any Party or Signee variable under the Variables tab when defining the draft's collaborators, manually type in, or select their details from your Contact list under People tab:

How do I use Party or Signee variables in my automation?

You can also use any of the pre-existing Party and Signee variables to auto-populate the Party and Signature fields of the automatically shared draft.

Another possible use of the variables is to automatically display the names of both Signees in the new draft's title. 

Here is a link to our article that can help you with the needed details of using Party or Signee variables in Contractbook in-app Automation Builder.

Note: You can add a collaborator by email, either from the Variables or People tab. If you want to use a variable from any Data field in your document, make sure the Data field contains an email address. If the Data field includes a name or any other contact detail instead, that will not be sufficient to identify the collaborator:

You can add as many collaborators as you need and select their permissions individually:

Here is what the list of collaborators looks like in our example of a draft share automation:

Once you are done with the automation setup, you can click on Save to confirm the configuration of the automation and then Publish in the upper right-hand corner to set it into active use.

How can I rename the automation?

You can always rename the automation and each of its steps as you find fit by clicking on the small pen icon next to the generic title in the upper left-hand corner. In the example we are working with, let us call it "Share new employment draft":

How can I make changes to published automation?

Note: If at one point you need to make any changes to the automation, remember to unpublish it first, then make the needed edits and click again on Publish to put the flow into practice. You can control that by turning the Status toggle bar on or off: 

How can I use the Activity feed of my automation?

If you click on the three grey dots next to the status toggle bar, you will be able to open, rename, delete or see the activity feed of the automation. Remember that the automation must be active (published) in order for the activities to be available and inactive to be deleted. 

In the activity sidebar, you will be able to see all the details of when the automation was used and the steps which were taken before it was triggered. Just click on the small arrow next to the date and time to expand the details. You can also click on both drafts from this view - this will automatically open them for review:

In addition, you will always be notified in-app in the Notifications at the top navigation bar, as soon as any of your automation flows has been executed:

Note: You can adjust the email and in-app notifications under Profile Settings for your account.

How can I test the automation?

For the test to be performed, you can generate a new draft from the template you used in the first step of the automation setup and if needed, fill in any of the Data fields or body text.

As soon as the draft is created and saved, go back to your documents overview and check the notifications under your account. The status of the automation will be listed there as either successful or failed.

How can I fix a failed automation? 

In case the automation has failed, you can access the detailed view by clicking on the failed notification in the list under your profile notifications:

In this view, you can identify the reason for the failure by expanding the failure to run details. You can then use the information found here to make the needed changes.

In the case above, we need to go back to the "Employment contract" template used in the first automation step and change the Data field used to fetch one of the collaborators to an email address.

Each collaborator is identified by email address, the value of the used in the automation setup Data field must therefore be matched.

How can I check the automation runs successfully?

In case the automation has run successfully, you can now find the newly created draft shared with the exact same collaborators you have configured under the second automation step. Click on the draft's name from the activity feed to open and review its details.

Now that you have tested the automation workflow, you are ready to start using it to save time, reduce errors and scale your business by automatically sharing a new draft with the relevant parties.

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.