Stages of Contract Lifecycle Management: #7 – Search & Retrieval Stage

In this contract lifecycle management series, we have discussed the first six stages that occur within the lifecycle of a contract. These stages include the following:

Stage #1: Contract Request

Stage #2: Contract Authoring

Stage #3: Contract Approval

Stage #4: Contract Execution

Stage #5: Contract Storage

Stage #6: Records Management

Today we will cover the seventh stage of contract lifecycle management: the search and retrieval stage.

Content-

• Stage #7: The Search and Retrieval Stage
• The Importance of Contract Accessibility
• Why SharePoint is Optimal for Contract Searching, Retrieval, and Storage
• Search Capabilities to Consider When Selecting a Contract Management System
• How Customizable Filters Can Help
• What Would A Streamlined Digital Contract Search and Retrieval Process Look Like For My Business?
• Conclusion

Stage #7: The Search and Retrieval Stage

During the seventh stage of contract lifecycle management, your company’s contract administrator and other involved departments will locate and retrieve digital contracts and related documents from their contract management software system. In the Dock Contract Management System, all of your company’s contracts are securely stored in a SharePoint-based, centralized repository. The main objective of this stage is to easily and quickly search for digital contracts by leveraging advanced, filtered search features provided by your contract management software. In this way, you can efficiently retrieve digital contracts and documents on demand from your contract management system.

The Importance of Contract Accessibility

It’s necessary that your company’s digital contracts are accessible for daily operations so they can be referred to in your business transactions. Contract accessibility increases the speed of records management and helps to solidify business partnerships due to increased efficiency – meaning you can rapidly provide accurate contract-related answers to your partners whenever questions are posed. With all of your contracts at your fingertips in your centralized repository, you can easily search and locate digital contracts and make well-informed business decisions so you can improve your strategies as you go. In your contract management software’s settings, you can enable customized permissions-based accessibility to digital contracts, allowing you to delegate who is authorized to search for and retrieve contracts and documents.

Why SharePoint is Optimal for Contract Searching, Retrieval, and Storage

Here at Dock, your SharePoint serves as the contract repository platform. SharePoint is equipped with cloud storage, SharePoint Backup, and SharePoint Restore – all leading to increased security over your digital contracts. In your SharePoint, authorized users can use saved, customized search filters to find contracts within your repository. The advanced search feature locates digital contracts tagged with information that pertains to the search, making it fast and efficient. All in all, your SharePoint-based digital contract repository system makes it incredibly easy to search for, retrieve, store, and organize your company’s contracts.

Search Capabilities to Consider When Selecting a Contract Management System

If you can store your contracts safely and securely, but you can’t find them when you need them most… how much good does that really do?

We highly suggest adopting contract management software that comes with robust search tools. Consider Optical Character Recognition (OCR) search and scanning, customizable filters that can be saved for future use, full-text search, and other revolutionary features. You’ll want to leverage a contract management solution that lets you sort through a massive volume of highly complex digital contracts and metadata with both speed and precision.

How Customizable Filters Can Help

Here at Dock, we want you to have full control over your contracts. This means we want you to be able to find them swiftly with your customizable search function that allows you to save filters.

Do you search for similar contract types on a frequent basis?

If so, you can save specific customized filters so you can use them again and again when you conduct similar searches. You can utilize various filters to find data right away, maximizing your organization’s time-efficiency and productivity within this stage of contract lifecycle management.

Finding digital contracts is easy – all that’s required is to type key words pertaining to the contract, clause, or document needed in the Search bar – and the software will take care of the rest.

What Would A Streamlined Digital Contract Search and Retrieval Process Look Like For My Business?

Searching for and retrieving a digital contract, clause, or document should be nearly effortless. Our Contract Management System will help you find whatever you need within a few seconds after using the Search bar and/or filters. The Dock 365 Contract Management System increases organizational efficiency and time management for all departments that contribute to contract lifecycle management processes.

Remove the need to sort through shared drives, physical contract copies, and filling cabinets with the help of advanced, filtered search tools and Cloud-based storage in your SharePoint-based contract repository. With all of these modern tools available, our software solution uses the information you provide within the search field to give you accurate results.

Your contract management software is built on to your company's existing SharePoint platform, and it is highly customizable to your organization's brand, key goals, and unique needs. It is optimal for businesses of all sizes – from small businesses to large enterprises that need to manage and powerfully oversee hundreds of thousands of digital contracts and related documents within a centralized software portal. All of your company's contracts, documents, and related data are securely stored in a single location within your SharePoint centralized repository, equipped with some of the best search capabilities that will allow authorized users to search for and retrieve any contract, clause, or document seamlessly.

Conclusion

The search and retrieval stage of contract lifecycle management is important to the efficiency and time management aspect of your company’s contract management processes. Here at Dock, we can help you optimize this very stage of contract lifecycle management in a way that is suited to your company’s unique business needs and objectives.

The Dock 365 Contract Management System provides powerful and productive contract management, especially in the search and retrieval stage of a contract’s lifecycle. Dock works to streamline and simplify your contract management process for every individual and team involved so that work can be completed as productively and efficiently as possible.

Continue your exploration of Stages of Contract Lifecycle Management with Dock 365 - Reporting and Data Analysis.

Reach out to us to learn more about our  Dock 365 Contract Management System.