Contract obligations

Every contract has obligations written into its terms and conditions which describe the actions and deliverables required over the contract duration by and from each party.

Contract obligations are usually accompanied by a description of the penalties that will be incurred by either party should the obligations not be met. AVEVA Contract Risk Management's obligations functionality can also be used to monitor other internal stakeholder responsibilities relating to the contract.

The contract home page has an Obligations tab, on which all obligations can be viewed and milestone obligations can be created, and a Calendar tab, on which obligation due dates are displayed - see Contract calendar for more information.

Obligations initiated by communications

Obligations are initiated automatically when communications which require response are sent (i.e. the communication state is set to Awaiting Agreement from Recipient or Approved). The obligation details - Title, Clause and Text - are configured in the communication template.

Obligations created this way can be manually updated but cannot be deleted.

The obligations will be set as Completed when the required response (agreement and/or reply) is sent. They can also can be manually set as Completed.

Owners and responsible parties

An obligation can optionally have an assigned owner (Company, Contractor or Internal) and a responsible party that is one of the following:

• A business process role.

• A company contract role.

• A company user.

• If the owner of the obligation is the contractor, any contractor contract role except Contractor Functional Support.

The default owner and responsible party of an obligation initiated by a communication depends on the communication routing path as follows:

• Company to Contractor: Owner = Contractor, Responsible Party = Contractor Representative

• Contractor to Company: Owner = Company, Responsible Party = Company Representative

• Internal Correspondence: Owner = Company, Responsible Party = Company Representative

These can be updated as necessary.

Due dates

The due date of an obligation initiated by a communication is set to the date that the communication was sent plus the number of days specified by the Process Time Limit in the communication template.

The due dates of all obligations can be manually associated with contract dates such as Award Date or Planned End Date, or with specific milestone dates created in the contract calendar or Contract Configuration page. When the due date of an obligation is reached, it automatically becomes Overdue unless its state was already set to Completed. The obligation's Overdue status is shown, for example, in the Contract Management Register. Note that if the due date of the obligation changes, through a manual update or through a change in a milestone date, the Overdue status will be removed if appropriate.

A separate reminder date can also be set for the obligation, relative to the due date. For an automatically-initiated obligation, this is set to 1 day before the due date, but can be edited.

Notifications

When the due date and optional reminder date are reached, an email notification is sent to the members of the responsible party for the obligation, containing:

• For manually created obligations, a link to the obligation.

• For obligations initiated by a communication, a link to the communication.

For company users who are members of the responsible party, a notification is also displayed on the navigation bar (see Notifications), and the obligation is included in:

• Contract Obligations alerts

• My Current Tasks dashboard

• Contract Management Register dashboard

Email notifications are also sent to members of the responsible party (company and contractor) for an obligation when:

• The due date of the obligation is changed.

• The responsible party is changed. Old members receive a notification that they are no longer a member; new members receive a link to the obligation.