Data-driven contract management is the building block for contract data processing and contract analytics, providing the necessary insights for organizations to reduce contract cycle times with improved control, governance, and visibility. Organizations can turn contracts into essential, data-driven sources of business intelligence that support strategies, tactics, and goals with the help of CobbleStone’s source-to-contract software, Contract Insight®. Here’s how.
Safeguard Data with Artificial Intelligence
First, data cannot be leveraged for the purposes mentioned above if its reliability is compromised. Thus, the first step toward making data-driven decisions is putting measures in place to protect your organization’s data fastidiously. Organizations must be equipped with the right tools to identify sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII) and payment card information (PCI) so that increased risk and compliance issues are avoided.
Thankfully, VISDOM AI, CobbleStone’s proprietary artificial intelligence tool, can assist Contract Insight administrators in identifying and safeguarding contract data types such as names, phone numbers, email addresses, locations, dates, counterparty names, and other key information. This functionality comes to the aid of organizations trying to decide which sensitive data should be redacted from a contract.
With VISDOM, Contract Insight administrators can select data types and define rules for access to those data points based on contract types. When these rules are put into place, they can be automated with the assistance of VISDOM, promoting increased security, reduced financial losses, improved reputation for organizations, and the elimination of time wasted performing monotonous data import analysis.
Leverage VISDOM AI for Data Extraction
The benefits of VISDOM for data-driven contract management don’t end with data protection and security. VISDOM can also be utilized for data extraction and classification.
CobbleStone’s AI-powered contract management software is critical in helping organizations import contract records, request records, and other data into their system in a more time-efficient and less error-prone manner.
With VISDOM, contract documents can easily be uploaded into an organization’s Contract Insight system. Once these documents are processed, users can choose the record type they want to create from a list of options, including contracts, requests, vendor/customer records, purchase orders, employee records, and eSourcing records.
An organization using this VISDOM feature would choose a contract type for a document and, upon running the document through VISDOM’s data extraction tool, see critical data such as dates, details, clauses, confidentiality notes, and renewal notes auto-extracted from their document. As such, organizations decrease time wasted on manual data entry and, instead, can focus on the value-driving aspects of contract management.
Data extraction with VISDOM is extremely beneficial to organizations that need to manage legacy contracts but lack the necessary resources to manage a bulk data import. The same, abovementioned process applies, allowing organizations to keep both new contracts and legacy contracts in a uniform format in a centralized location.
Searching for Documents with Contract Insight
When contracts and other documents are stored in shared drives, it becomes challenging for organizations to keep track of up-to-date document versions and contract details due to limited searching capabilities and the absence of audit trails. A contract management process that leverages a searchable contract repository promotes transparency into document versions and related documents and equips organizations with enhanced contract tracking and status updates. Contract Insight can provide these capabilities.
For searching, Contract Insight offers multiple options. Quick Search allows users to easily search throughout their contract management system for documents that contain specific keywords. Watch the Searching in Contract Insight® Tutorial video below.
With Simple Search, users can search within a specific contract category such as department, counterparty name, or account number to narrow down their search results. Simple Search is more specific and granular and is beneficial when users already know specifics about the contract or record.
Users can also search for reports that are stored in their system with ad-hoc report searches to view reports containing specific contract or counterparty information such as service contracts over $10,000.
With data that is searchable at a glance, organizations can optimize their data-driven contract management process.
Contract Management Reports
Organizations can create reports based on key dates, financials, and categorized data fields with Contract Insight’s configurable ad-hoc reports.
Contract management reports equip Contract Insight users with visibility of contractual relationships across their contract portfolio, and these reports feature full audit trails.
Ad-hoc reporting allows users to generate reports - or saved searches- based upon user-defined or system-defined fields. Users can make changes to contract records right from the ad-hoc report view page and changes to contracts from report results, allowing them to leverage data for enhanced, efficient contract management.
Contract Insight ad-hoc reports include:
- active contracts.
- expiring contracts.
- expired contracts.
- contract amounts.
- contracts by department.
- contracts that are in review.
- key dates and milestones.
- & more!
Contract Insight users can review reports on their dashboards or report lists, or they can have them sent via email on a scheduled basis – sending recurring emails as needed. With reports that help users maintain quick access to important data details about their contracts, organizations are making the most of contract data for smarter source-to-contract processes.
Better Contract Analytics with Intuitive Dashboards
Contract Insight users can leverage system and user-created dashboards for successful data-driven contract management.
Dashboards can be displayed by contract status, and administrators can assign certain dashboards to certain user groups. Furthermore, organizations can configure reports to be sent out to employees by automated email in structured spreadsheet form – even if those employees are not licensed users – so said parties could easily view essential data.
In addition to legacy dashboards, users are also encouraged to utilize Executive Graphical Dashboards. Out-of-the-box Executive Graphical Dashboard types include:
- Contracts KPI
- Contracts Overview
- Counts by Department
- Legal
- Vendor Management
- Year Analysis
- Bids Overview
Contract Insight's Contracts KPI Executive Graphical Dashboard is shown below.
Users can also create their own Executive Graphical Dashboards and specify the display of analytics for their needs. User-friendly and visually engaging dashboards promote data-driven contract management and, in turn, well-governed contract lifecycle management.
Transform Data-Driven Contract Management with CobbleStone
Organizations can set themselves up for long-term success with processes that are based upon the goal of efficiently gathering quality data and analyzing them swiftly and accurately to make informed business decisions.
With a contract management solution that allows organizations to protect, extract, search, report, and analyze data easily in one centralized location, organizations can enjoy more control over their contracts, a streamlined contract lifecycle, and higher contract management ROI. This solution is Contract Insight by CobbleStone Software.
Contract Insight source-to-contract software provides contract and vendor tracking, configurable email alerts, calendar notifications, contract workflow management, contract writing, authoring of contract templates with dynamic clauses, robust security options, revenue and cost management, vendor/client ratings, full-text indexing and searching, custom reports, document version control, smarter contracts with artificial intelligence and machine learning, electronic signatures, and more.
CobbleStone Software has been a celebrated leader in contract management, vendor management, and eSourcing software solutions since 1995 and is trusted by thousands of users from a variety of industries.
Request a free demo of CobbleStone’s acclaimed contract management, sourcing, and procurement software solution today!
