Contract Express is a document automation system designed to create templates and produce documents using your organisation's own work. We have integrated Contract Express with the HighQ platform and with its intuitive markup, compliance and relevancy tools Contract Express automates and simplifies the drafting process; providing more time to focus on higher-value work.
Contract Express integration requires access to third-party services for system and site administrators. This allows admins to upload templates, set up access to the service for users, and allows users to access templates for document automation.
As described in the overview, first check you have purchased the HighQ Document Automation powered by Contract Express module via your HighQ representative and that it has been activated.
Enabling Contract Express in your instance
A System Admin must add access to Contract Express for each instance. In your instance, click on your profile drop-down menu and navigate to System admin:
The System admin screen is displayed. In the System admin screen, navigate to System settings:
The System settings screen is displayed. In the System settings screen, navigate to the Document automation section:
In the Document automation section, click the drop-down menu. You have 3 options:
- Disabled - This option completely disables the Contract Express integration in the instance
- Enabled, default OFF in every site - This enables the Contract Express integration, but it is set to off in every site. This can be enabled on a site-by-site basis by a Site Admin user
- Enabled, default ON in every site - This enables the Contract Express integration, and also has it set to on in every site. Please note that the integration can be disabled in Site Settings
As of the Sept 2022 update, if Contract Express is enabled, a message indicates that a site has been created automatically using default values.
A site is created both when HighQ Doc Auto is enabled, and also if HighQ Doc Auto was enabled before the September 2022 update.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save. Contract Express is now enabled in your instance and the active System admin account is registered with the linked Contract Express account.
If the Contract Express service is available an Authorised label is shown next to the title.
A HighQ instance may only be registered and connected with a single Contract Express account. Once configured, you may not unregister an account.
The automatically created site can be adjusted to meet your requirements, or you can choose to create a Contract Express site manually.
Uploading the Contract Express licence
After enabling Contract Express in your instance, HighQ support will put you in touch with the Contract Express support in order to generate the required licensing. You will be sent a Contract Express licence file. This file must be uploaded to your Contract Express licence space by a system admin to provide access to Contract Express features.
The Admin must be a member of the Contract express admins and authors system group.
- Save the licence file (xml format) on your computer
- Click Go to Contract Express from your HighQ Profile menu
- Your Contract Express licence space opens in a new browser window
- Select Admin, then License
- Click the Upload Licence button and follow the instructions to upload your licence file
- When a message confirms the file has uploaded, return to HighQ to continue the setup process.
Enabling Contract Express in a site
Once you have enabled Contract Express in your instance, if you selected to have it set to off as default on every site, you will need to activate it on a site by site basis.
To do this, click Admin in the site where Contract Express is to be enabled:
The Site admin screen will be displayed. In the Site admin screen, navigate to Document Automation > Contract Express templates:
The Contract Express templates screen is displayed:
In the Contract Express screen, you can enable and add new Contract Express templates. Adding Contract Express templates will be covered in another article, here.
Click the Contract Express templates drop-down menu, to access the following options:
- ON (Default) - this is automatically selected, if you selected to have Contract Express enabled by default in the system settings
- ON - enables Contract Express on your site
- OFF - disables Contract Express on your site
Select ON to turn on Contract Express and click Save to save your changes.
Contract Express will now be enabled on your site.
Contract Express system groups
Once Contract Express has been enabled, you will need to add users to the system group, to ensure they can access all features of Contract Express. To do this, a system administrator needs to click their profile menu drop-down and click System admin:
The System admin screen will be displayed. In the System admin screen, navigate to Group admin:
The Group admin screen is displayed:
In the Group admin screen, you have access to two new system groups:
- Contract Express admins and authors [System group]
- Contract Express basic users [System basic user group]
- Contract Express users [System group]
These groups enable you to have access to the Contract Express integration, and also assign users to be able to administrate the Contract Express integration. See System groups and roles for further information.
System groups and roles
Users can use one of three roles in Contact Express, User, Author and Admin. These are defined by two system groups that are created when the Contract Express integration is enabled.
- Admin - a HighQ system admin added to the Contract express admins and authors group.
An Admin has access to Contract Express templates. They may create, edit and manage Contract Express templates (and also have Author and User permissions, below).
- Author - a site admin or user added to the Contract express admins and authors group.
An Author may create and use Contract Express templates (and also have User permissions, below)
- User - a site admin or user added to the Contract express users group.
A User may use existing Contract Express templates to create automated documents from existing templates.
- Basic User - a basic user can be only added to the Contract Express basic users group.
A Basic User may use existing Contract Express templates to create automated documents from existing templates.
Users who are not a member of these System groups will not be able to use Contract Express templates.
External users (users without a dedicated HighQ account) may not be a member of the Contract express admins and authors group.
The System Admin that enabled the Contract Express integration is automatically added to the Contract express admins and authors group, add other members as usual.
As of 5.7, system administrators can delegate management of the Contract Express system groups to other, internal users.
Please note that this will only work if the selected user is not already a system administrator
Selecting users to delegate management of Contract Express system groups to
When in the System admin screen, navigate to User admin:
Within User admin, search for the user you wish to delegate to:
Select the check box next to their name, and click Roles:
As long as the user is not a system admin, you will see a new Allow user to manage Contract Express system groups option.
Select this check box and a new drop down menu will be displayed:
Select either Internal users only or Internal and external users and click Save.
Please note that if you only have access to internal users, you will not see any external users in the auto-suggest field when you are adding members to the Contract Express users group
Your changes will be saved and the user will now be able to delegate the management of CE system groups.
Managing Contract Express system groups
Once a user has been given the permissions to manage Contract Express system groups, they will see the following new option in their profile drop down menu:
This will display a new Contract Express management screen:
Where the user can add and remove users from the 3 Contract Express groups:
Click Save to save your changes.
CE Admin & Author system group
System groups dedicated to Contract Express permit users to both configure and use the Contract Express integration. All user accounts that require access to Contract Express must be a member of at least one of these groups.
In System Admin, Group Admin, two groups are available, Contract Express admins and authors, and Contract Express users.
As of version 5.4, when a HighQ instance is created a service account for Contract Express is also created (contractexpress.engine@high.com). This 'user' account is used for auditing for the HighQ instance and is assigned Internal User and System Admin roles.
Do not remove this account from the Contract Express admins and authors group.
