Terms and concepts
Contract management includes the process of systematically and efficiently managing contract creation, execution and analysis for maximizing operational and financial performance and minimizing risk.
Contract management is a feature that enables registering, overviewing and controlling of the Contracts.
Contract is the registration of the agreement between user of the NSP application and the third party (Vendor).
Contract type describes what kind of contract is registered. Default (supported out of the box) contract types are:
•Software license – registered contract covers licenses for the purchased software
•Subscription – covers all kind of subscriptions for the various services
•Lease – covers leasing agreement for leased assets
•Maintenance – covers maintenance agreements for the user’s assets
User can customize Contract management in NSP by adding custom Contract types.
Vendor is the other side of the agreement in the contract that’s been registered. It’s the provider of the services covered by the Contract.
Contract status is the descriptor of the contract’s current status. Default contract statuses are:
•Draft – Contract is still in the draft phase and not ready for approval.
•Pending Approval – Contract is submitted for approval.
•Approved – Contract is approved but not yet active.
•Active – Contract is valid.
•Expired – Validity time period of the Contract has expired.
•Terminated – Contract has been terminated.
•Active (Renewed) – Contract is valid, renewed for a new period.
Contract statuses can be customized through the Lifecycle Management in NSP.
Start Date is the date when the Contract will become valid, and will get Active status.
End Date is the date when the Contract will expire and will get Expired status. This date can be omitted, so the contract can be active until it is manually terminated. If Auto renew is enabled for the contract, End Date will be automatically moved forward a renewal period, and contract will get status Active (Renewed).
Contract Owner is the NSP user account of the user that applies contract for the registration in NSP. Contract owner is obliged to submit contract for approval.
Contract Approver is the NSP user account of the user who is authorized to approve the registration of the contract.
Lifecycle of the contract is:
Contract Owner enters contract in the system in one or several revisions during which the contract is in Draft status. After all the data about the contract are correct, owner submits contract for approving. Contract Approver will get notification that the contract is waiting for approval and will be prompted to approve or reject the contract. After the contract is approved, it will get Approved status until the Start Date, when its status will become Active. Contract will remain in Active status until one of the following happens:
•If End date is set and Auto renew is not enabled, contract will be put to Expired status by the system on the End Date.
•If End date is set and Auto renew is enabled, End date will be changed this date (moved forward a new renewal period) and contract will be put in Active (Renewed) status.
•If End date is not set, user must change status of the contract manually to Expired, or Terminated when contract no longer should be valid.
•Termination date occurs. Termination date is used for to manually input a termination date of a contract. If date is defined (not empty) is the contract automatically set to Terminated status on this date, independently of defined End date or other properties.
A Terminated or Expired contact could be manually re-activated. Select status Active (Renewed).
Covered CI is a list of the Configuration Items that are associated with the Contract. For instance, Maintenance contract will have the list of the CIs that are eligible for maintenance services under that contract.
Attachment is any document that can be attached to the contract and contains further information about the contract registration. It can be actual text of the contract, appendix, or any other document needed to be stored together with the contract in the Contract Management.
Associated Contracts is the list of contracts associated with the given contract no matter what’s the nature of relation between them.