Assigning Contract Intake is now easier and more efficient with Contract Intake Automation. Contract Intake Automation allows for automated Contract delegation by ensuring that Contract Requests are going to the appropriate Sourcing Manager based on a set of defined rules.

In this article we will cover:

• How to Create Contract Intake Rules
• How Rule Prioritization Works
• How to Manage Intake Rules

How to Create Contract Intake Rules

To create Contract Intake Rules, a Company Admin will need to set up a set of criteria and an assignee. The criteria is based upon all the fields from your Contract. The assignee must be an active user of Sourcing Manager or higher-level access. If a Contract Intake Form is submitted and it matches the criteria in your Rule, then it will make the assignee the owner of that Project.

These rules are defined and editable by Company Admins within the Settings page under the Automation section. 

Step 1: Navigate to Contract Intake Routing

First, click Settings to bring you to the Settings page. At the very bottom left of the Settings panel select Contract Intake Routing, located within the Automation section:

Step 2: Creating Rules

This brings you to the Contract Intake Routing page. You can start creating new Rules by clicking Create New Rule.

This will create and open a new Rule that you can begin editing.

Step 3: Edit Rules

Click the Edit Rules button to begin selecting the Rule's Filters & Columns.  

Once you have selected your desired Filters and Columns click the Save button. As an example, you can see I have selected Contract Type:

Once you click the Save button, this will then prompt you to select the specifications for the Rule's criteria fields.

For example, since Contract Type is selected for this Rule, the specific Contract Type also needs to be selected. Notice that Master Service Agreement is selected as the Contract Type in this example and Mackenzie is set as the Sourcing Manager for the Contract Intake Form to route to.   

Note: If a Contract Intake Form is submitted and matches the criteria within a Rule, it generates an assignment. This assignment is both automatically added to the company Pipeline and an email notification is sent to the newly assigned User letting them know the details of the Project and a link to view more.

With the Rule we created in our example above, any time a new Intake Request with the Contract Type set as "Master Service Agreement", it would automatically make an assignment to Mackenzie and route the Request to her. 

How Prioritization Works

Companies might have many different sets of Rules for Intake assignment. These can have various breakpoints and overlapping sets of criteria that only apply in certain situations. In order to handle this complexity, each Rule is given a rank comparatively to the others in within the Company.

If a Contract Intake Form is submitted, it checks the Rules in order from top to bottom. As soon as a Rule is matched, the search is over and the assignment is generated. 

In a scenario like the above - if a Contract Intake Form was submitted with Estimated Spend equal to $1,000,000 and the location is Europe, it would be sent to Allison due the ranking of the rules. If the Estimated spend was lower than $500,000 and the location is Europe, it would be sent to Dan. The reason for this is because if the Contract Intake Form does not meet ALL of the criteria in the first Rule (Estimated Spend is not greater than $500,000), it moves down to the next Rule to see if it matches the criteria until an assignment match is made. 

The important thing to remember when prioritizing Rules is that Contract Intake Routing will always begin by checking the first Rule's criteria before moving down the list of Rules to match the Intake Form with the correct set of criteria. Therefore, your most important Rules or Rule that should take precedence over other Rules, should be placed at the top of the Rule List. 

How to Manage Intake Rules  

To Edit Rules:
Each Rule can be edited completely afterwards, including all criteria and assignee. To edit any part of the Rule click Edit next to the Rule you would like to begin editing:

Re-Prioritize Rules:
Each Rule can be reordered using a simple drag and drop interface:

Notification of Broken Rules:
Companies have people coming and going regularly. As you disable former employees or make Stakeholders people with changing responsibilities, you will need to see which Rules need reassignment. These Users will not be able to own Projects anymore, but that does not mean their routings disappear. We highlight the Rule in red to make it clear what needs be reassigned, and allow the Projects to come in as unassigned (this notifies all Admins of any Project that comes in without assignment).

For example, if a user is changed from a Sourcing Manager to a Stakeholder license, since they are attached to the above Intake Rule, the Rule will be flagged so that Admins are aware it needs to be update. 

Contract Intake Automation now allows Companies to automate Contract delegation while also ensuring that the process is kept simple and easily manageable for Scout Administrators. With the ability to sort, modify, and re-assign, the Intake process can better handle the needs of a modern service workforce! 

Click here for more information on Intake