Automate contract processes

Automate your contract processes

A business contract process is a system of interconnected steps with various stages from initiating an agreement to the final steps of closing a deal. The tasks involved during the different stages of a contract are vital to contract management but instead of manually tracking each task, you can automate these tasks by configuring Flows on Adobe Acrobat Sign for Salesforce.

Processes are built around logical flows and contain one Trigger event, at least one Condition, and at least one Action that can happen in real-time and/or as a scheduled event.

Adobe Acrobat Sign for Salesforce supports the following two Action types: Update Records and Apex Action.

See how to :

• Configure flows with 'Update Records' as the Action type.
• Configure flows with 'Apex Action' as the Action type.

Configure Flows with Update Records

You can use the Update Records action type in the Salesforce Flows to set the Background Action picklist field on the agreement record to invoke an action.

Adobe Acrobat Sign allows you to create a new process that triggers based on record change events and then invokes an action on the related Adobe Acrobat Sign agreement. You can control when the action must occur (i.e. after which field update on the master record) and which related agreement(s) are selected for the action.

Update Records action type supports the following actions: Send, Cancel, Delete, Remind, and Update.

You can create Update Records action flows for Adobe Acrobat Sign agreements, as shown below.

The Start element of the 'Update Records' Flow defines when the automated flow is triggered to start. In the Configure Start dialog, ensure that you specify the Salesforce object whose records should trigger the flow, set when the flow must be triggered, and set entry conditions for one or more fields.

The Updates Records Background Action sets a background action to update the selected records that meet the condition. To modify an Updates Records Background Action, you can select the Update Records action and then select Edit Element.

In the Edit Update Records dialog:

1. You choose how you want the flow to find records. If you want to update all records related to the Opportunity record, for instance, select Update records related to the opportunity record that triggered the flow, and then under Select Related Records, you provide the record ID.
   
   Note: The record ID must contain the "echosign_dev1" namespace. The echosign_dev1 object is associated with the common Salesforce objects, such as Account or Opportunity. If the Agreements are related to a custom object, this name is unique to the org.
2. Set filter conditions as required.
3. Specify the background action by assigning a value for the "echosign_dev1_Background_Action_c" field.
4. Select Done.

Configure Flows with Apex Action

You can use the Apex Action type in the Salesforce Flows to invoke an Invocable Method included with the managed package to perform the corresponding action. 

You can create a new process that triggers based on record change events and then invokes an action on a related Adobe Acrobat Sign agreement.

Apex Action supports the following actions: Send, Cancel, Delete, Remind, Update, and Load (Template).

Adobe Acrobat Sign provides the following invocable actions that are configured for Apex Action flows:

• Cancel Agreement [AgreementCancelInvocableAction]
• Delete Agreement [AgreementDeleteInvocableAction]
  
• Load Agreement Template [AgreementTemplateLoadInvocableAction]
• Send Agreement [AgreementSendInvocableAction]
• Send Agreement Reminder [AgreementRemindInvocableAction]
• Update Agreement [AgreementUpdateInvocableAction]

You can create Apex Action Flows for Adobe Acrobat Sign agreements, as shown below.

The Start element is configured for a Salesforce object whose records should trigger the flow when agreements are created, updated, or deleted. You can configure the flow trigger and set entry conditions. For instance, the Apex Action Flow below is configured to trigger when a record is updated on the condition that the Agreement stage is Negotiation/Review.

The Assignment element defines the Agreement Template runtime variables. You must create a new 'Variable' resource that stores values to be used during the flow. In the Assignment element, you can select the variable and set values using an appropriate operator.

You can set multiple values for a variable. For instance, set your variable to pick the values for recipient ID and attachment ID using the Add operator: 

myRecipient=joe@example.com,myAttachmentId=0695j000007fcs9AAA

For a Variable to accept multiple values, ensure that you enable 'Allow multiple values (collection)' in the settings for your Variable resource. To verify or change the Variable settings:

1. Select  to open the Toolbox.
2. From under Collection Variables, select the variable that you want to verify or edit.
3. In the Edit Variable dialog, verify the settings.
4. To change the variable settings, select 
5. In the Edit Variable dialog, change the settings as required and then select Done.

The Apex Action element defines the input values for your agreement flow, as shown below.

• In the Agreement Template ID field, you must provide the template ID for the agreement template that you want to set the flow for. 
• In the Agreement Template Runtime Variables, you must enter the Variable that you defined using the Assignment element above.

Note: The Agreement Template Runtime Variables field does not accept multiple values. An attempt to enter multiple values in a comma-separated format may result in an error in the flow.  

• In the Async Processing field, you can set the value as true or false.
• In the Master Record ID field, you must enter the master record ID.

Apex Action flows provide the following functionalities:

• It supports scheduled actions.
• It supports auto-send for Agreement Templates, that is agreements can be automatically generated and sent.
• All actions can accept multiple requests in one invocation.
• Any exceptions are caught and stored on the result record and logged as an error in the Apex debug log to avoid blocking process execution.
• The parameter to the Template Load function (Async Processing), controls whether the template processing occurs in synchronous or asynchronous mode. The caller needs to specify whether the template load should run in sync or async mode.
  • The default process runs in synchronous mode. The bulk of processes should run synchronously.
  • If auto-send is enabled, the process must be in synchronous mode.
  • A notable asynchronous process can be Loading an Adobe Acrobat Sign library document.

Apex Action flows have the following limitations:

• The combination of auto-send templates and Adobe Acrobat Sign library documents is not supported due to a limitation in Salesforce where one thread cannot kick off another thread.
  
• For any parameters passed into the invocable action, you can reference only parent fields. You cannot take action on child agreements under a master record.
• It does not support actions that return a value, such as getting document info or getting a signing URL.