How to build a contract management system with Zoho Office Integrator

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Getting started

Zoho Office Integrator is a cloud-based, embeddable office suite with fully functional editors that help you create, view, and edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations right from your web app, from your preferred storage platform or location.

This article will provide a quick overview of how to build your own contract management system to draft, review, and execute contracts with Zoho Office Integrator.

Overview

Drafting and executing contracts can be challenging and time-consuming because it involves tracking the changes made through numerous reviews and negotiations, getting it verified and approved, and then collecting signatures from the parties involved.

Solving contract management challenges with Office Integrator

Let's take a look at the various stages of contract management and the corresponding Office Integrator capabilities, along with the related APIs, that help simplify them.

  • Stage

    Problem statementZoho Office Integrator’s solution

  • Authoring contracts

    How can I create a new contract?Use Office Integrator's create document API to create a contract quickly.

    How do I modify an existing template or contract to my specific needs?Use Office Integrator’s edit document API to import your existing contract and make the necessary changes.

  • Reviewing contracts

    How do I review the contract in real time with my colleagues?Use Office Integrator’s co-edit document API to collaborate in real time with your colleagues and get their suggestions.

  • Approving and signing contracts

    How do I get my contract approved from my client?Share the contract with your client using the co-edit document API for them to review and suggest changes.

    How do I get my contract digitally signed?Export or download the approved contract and collect digital signatures from your client with your preferred sign service.

  • Performing post-sign operations

    How do I configure post-sign workflows for my approved contract?Export the signed contract in your preferred file format or save it to your preferred storage location.

Pre-requisites

Before you start building your contract management system, make sure you have:

Authoring contracts

You can use Zoho Office Integrator to either:

  • Create a contract from scratch.
  • Edit an existing document/template.

To create a new contract:

1. Use the Create Document API to create a new blank contract in your app and add the necessary clauses, terms, and conditions.

Note: You can specify the document’s output format and the URL for saving the created document in the Create Document request.

To edit an existing template:

1. Use the Edit Document API to open an existing document, which can be in any popular format, such as .docx, from your preferred storage location and start editing them in your app.

2. Use the Insert Content API to quickly add, update, or replace existing clauses in your contract document with the formatting intact.

While creating or editing documents in your app using Office Integrator, you can customize the various aspects, such as:

  • Document page orientation
  • Font name and font size
  • Document language

Here is a sample request to open an existing document from your preferred storage location with the page orientation set to landscape, the font name as Roboto, the size as 14 pt, and the document language as English.

  • curl -X POST \
  • 'https://api.office-integrator.com/writer/officeapi/v1/documents' \
  • -H 'content-type: multipart/form-data; boundary=----WebKitFormBoundary7MA4YWxkTrZu0gW' \
  • -F 'apikey=423s*****' \
  • -F 'document_defaults={"font_size":"16”,”font_name":"Roboto","orientation”: ”landscape”,"language":"en-US"}' \
  • -F 'callback_settings={"save_format":"zdoc","save_url":"https://domain.com/save.php"}'

Office Integrator also offers various editing and formatting options, such as heading styles, finding and replacing content, and locking certain parts of your content, to format the contract to fit your needs.

You can also add fillable fields to prefill available information automatically, such as the client’s company name, company address, and more, to simplify contract execution.

Reviewing contracts

You can use Office Integrator’s built-in, real-time collaboration functionality, such as track changes and in-doc comments, to share the draft of your contracts with relevant teams and stakeholders to get their suggestions and make the contract as comprehensive as possible.

Steps to review a contract:

1. Invoke the Co-edit Document API to share the contract with your colleagues with different permissions as needed. You can also add display names and provide permission to export or print the document in the same request.

2. You can use the track changes option to view the edits your collaborators have suggested to the contract and accept or reject them. You can also view their comments to see their suggestions and make changes or reply to those comments.

3. If needed, you can configure post-review options such as adding a watermark to the contract with Watermark API.

Note: You can specify the document’s output format and the URL for saving the edited document in the co-edit document request.

The sample request below shares a document with two users with track changes and comments permission enabled for both of them.

  • curl -X POST \
  • https://api.office-integrator.com/writer/officeapi/v1/documents \
  • -H 'content-type: multipart/form-data; boundary=----WebKitFormBoundary7MA4YWxkTrZu0gW' \
  • -F apikey=423s***** \
  • -Fdocument=@/Users/username/Documents/Sample.docx \
  • -F 'document_defaults={"track_changes":"enabled"}' \
  • -F 'permissions={'\''review.changes.resolve'\'':true,'\''review.comment'\'':true}' \
  • -F 'callback_settings={'\''save_format'\'':'\''zdoc'\'','\''save_url'\'':'\''https://domain.com/save.php/'\''}' \
  • -F 'document_info={'\''document_name'\'':'\''New'\'', '\''document_id'\'':1349}' \
  • -F 'user_info={'\''user_id'\'':'\''1973'\'','\''display_name'\'':'\''Ken'\''}'
  • curl -X POST \
  • https://api.office-integrator.com/writer/officeapi/v1/documents \
  • -H 'content-type: multipart/form-data; boundary=----WebKitFormBoundary7MA4YWxkTrZu0gW' \
  • -F apikey=423s***** \
  • -Fdocument=@/Users/username/Documents/Sample.docx \
  • -F 'document_defaults={"track_changes":"enabled"}' \
  • -F 'permissions={'\''review.changes.resolve'\'':true,'\''review.comment'\'':true}' \
  • -F 'callback_settings={'\''save_format'\'':'\''zdoc'\'','\''save_url'\'':'\''https://domain.com/save.php/'\''}' \
  • -F 'document_info={'\''document_name'\'':'\''New'\'', '\''document_id'\'':1349}' \
  • -F 'user_info={'\''user_id'\'':'\''1974'\'','\''display_name'\'':'\''Amelia'\''}'

Approving and signing contracts

Once the contract gets the go-ahead from your team, you can automatically share it with your client to get their reviews and suggestions.

When the client approves the contract, you can automatically send it to relevant stakeholders to collect their signatures digitally.

Steps to get a contract approved and signed:

1. Invoke the Co-edit document API and share the contract with the client with track changes and comments permission.

2. Once the client has added their suggestions to the contract, you can open the document, accept or reject them via track changes, or add replies to the comments and send it back for further review.

Note: You can also set due dates and send periodic remainder emails to the client to review/approve the contract.

3. Post the contract approval, you can use your preferred e-sign service to send it to all relevant stakeholders and collect their digital signatures.

Note:You can also use Zoho Sign, digital signature software, to collect e-signatures in your contract.

Creating a Zoho Office Integrator account and generating an API key

1. Go to https://zoho.com/officeintegrator/signup.html. Enter your name, email address, choose your industry sector, and click Signup to create a Zoho account.

2.In the API key generation page that loads after you have created an account, you will be asked to choose the type of app (Commercial or Non-commercial) that you intend to build. Enter your organization’s name, a short description of your app, and click Generate API Key. You’ll be redirected to Zoho Office Integrator’s interface with the generated API key present in the top-left.

Note:The generated API key uniquely identifies the app in which you have embedded/integrated Zoho’s editors and is associated with your Zoho account. It’s mandatory to pass it in every API request to authorize it.

Zoho Office   Integrator advantage

With Zoho Office Integrator, your contract management system can:

  • Get a full stack editor with powerful editing and formatting tools to create or edit contracts.
  • Work with different file formats including .docx and .odt.
  • Collaborate in real time with all relevant stakeholders to build, review, negotiate, and edit the contents of the contract.
  • Automatically initiate the contract approval and signature collection process.
  • Satisfy compliance regulations by tracking who changed what, and when, in your contract document and restricting access to contracts.
  • Save the contract to your preferred storage location: AWS, Google Drive, Zoho WorkDrive, or your local drive.