Audience: standard users and power users
Overview
Contract Eagle offers flexible tools for managing important contract milestones and reminders. In this article, we’ll guide you through how to configure and manage key contract dates, whether for one-off events or recurring milestones, using the built-in Date Types.
By the end of this article, you'll be able to:
Manage contract milestone dates.
Configure e-mail reminders for upcoming contract events.
Choose between one-time or recurring milestone dates to match your specific contract requirements.
Contract Milestone Date
Contract milestone dates allow users to track key events and deadlines throughout the contract lifecycle. These dates can be configured to be either mandatory or optional depending on your needs. You can define a full sequence of milestones and set up reminders for specific events, ensuring that important deadlines are not missed.
Dates can be “simple dates,” where users manually enter a date without any recurring events or reminders.
Dates which are not simple dates can be defined as either one-off events, or as a sequence of events occurring at regular intervals. The types of intervals available include:
Occur on the same day every month
Occur on the last day of every month
Occur every n days/weeks/months/years
Occur every n months
Recurring milestones can be set to terminate with one of the following rules:
When the contract is closed
On a specific date
After n days/weeks/months/years
After n occurrences
The configuration of the start date of a milestone is also very flexible, allowing one of the following rules:
On a specific date
Relative to the end of another milestone on the same contract
Editing a date
You edit an individual date by clicking on the field.
When you choose to edit a date you will be presented with one of two screens, depending on which screen layout you have selected. The type of layout is either a simple calendar or a full schedule, which gives the options for recurring dates and email reminders.
Editing a Simple Date
When editing a date which is configured with a simple Screen Layout you will use this calendar.
Editing a Full Schedule
When editing a full schedule you will be presented with this pop-up screen. This screen may look slightly different to the screen shown depending on which options you select for recurrence and email reminders. The variations and options are described in the sections below.
Schedule Option: Date of the first milestone
“On the specified date”
This option allows the schedule to be started on a specific date.
“Relative to the… plus/minus”
This option allows the schedule to be started relative to any other date defined on the contract, plus or minus a number of days, weeks, months or years. This feature may be most useful in situations where the contract start date is not yet known.
Schedule Option: Recurring
“Yearly” / “Monthly” / “Weekly” / “Daily”
This option allows you to specify that an event will occur at regular length intervals of a specified number of years/months/weeks/days. The number of years/months/weeks/days specified can be a number which is 1 or greater.
“Same day every month”
This option means that an event will occur every month on the specified day. It is also possible to specify the “last day” of the month.
Short Months: when a date is scheduled to occur on the “29th”, “30th”, or “31st” there are likely to be months occurring on the schedule that do not have the day in question so that day will fall on the last day of the month.
Schedule Option: Stops Recurring
No selection
When no option is selected for “Stops Recurring” then the schedule will carry on repeating until the status of the contract is set to “Closed”. At the time that the contract is closed this date will be set to the date on which the contract status was set to “Closed”.
“On the specified date”
This option allows you to specify that the schedule will carry on repeating until the specified date. Note: The image above shows dates in a British format (Day, Month, Year) although depending on your computer’s date settings you may see this in an American format (Month, Day, Year).
“After the specified interval”
This option allows you to specify that the schedule will carry on repeating until the specified number of years, months, weeks, days or occurrences has elapsed.
Schedule Option: Send Email Reminder
The Send Email Reminder option allows you to specify how reminder emails will be distributed to the recipients. The list of available options can all be controlled within the “Reminder Type” maintenance screen, and all fall into one of the following three general categories:
Email Selected Recipients.
This option allows you to specify that a reminder will be sent out to the selected contract roles when the event occurs. It is possible to send the reminder out on the same day as the event or a specified number of days in advance.The reminder will be sent to the user or contact that you have specified for the selected role. If the reminder type definition has the “task” option enabled, then a task will be created and assigned to the recipient of the reminder email.
Escalate through contract roles. Reminders will be sent firstly to the first role on the contract and then escalate to successive roles on the contract. Escalation intervals are fixed at seven days for the first escalation and two days for each successive escalation.
The escalation timing will commence as soon as the initial reminder is sent out.
The process for acknowledging the reminder differs depending upon whether the reminder was sent with or without a task being created:· No task. Click the “acknowledge” link in the reminder email.
· Task. Claim or close the task. This can be done directly within the task screen or by following the link from the reminder email.
Custom Escalation. Reminders will be sent to specific roles on the contract and then
This option is an example of a custom escalation path. By using the “Reminder Type” maintenance screen you have the ultimate flexibility to define different multiple recipients for multiple levels of escalation. The number of days allowed before escalation can be adjusted to any number of days.
The escalation timing will commence as soon as the initial reminder is sent out.
Message Text
The text entered into this field will be included in any reminder messages sent. The value which shows here when you first open the screen is the default value specified by the administrator when they defined this type of schedule.
Adding additional Recipients of reminder emails
This option is only available for “Email Selected Recipients” and “Escalate through the roles”. Custom Escalations define their own CC recipients.
The “CC” field allows for a copy of the reminder to be sent to other roles on the contract. This is most commonly used to allow for a courtesy reminder to be sent to the counterparty. The CC email will not necessarily be identical to the main email. It could differ in the following ways:
CC messages never require acknowledgement.
The main email may escalate however the CC recipient will only receive the first message and not the escalations.
CC messages will use the “Alternate Message” if it is specified, otherwise the message will be the same as for the main reminder.
Messages sent to the counterparty have slightly different wording. They also include user defined fields which have been flagged as “Visible to counterparty”.
Alternate message for CC
This option is only available for “Email Selected Recipients” and “Escalate through the roles”. Custom Escalations define their own CC recipients and instead have “Alternate Message for Counterparty”.
The alternate message for CC is optional. It is only applicable to the message sent to the CC recipient. If specified then it will be used as the main message in the CC email. If not specified then the text specified in the “Message” field will be used. This means, for example, you could send a different message to the counterparty than the message you send internally.
Alternate Message for Counterparty
This option is only available for custom reminder types. “Alternate Message for Counterparty”.
The alternate message for Counterparty is optional. It is sent in any reminders sent to the counterparty.