Contract is the main working entity of Oneflow, to which all other contract content, settings, data, etc., are connected.

In addition to being the central point of connection, the contract entity itself contains quite a lot of data described further in this section.

Contract attributes

The table below contains the list of all attributes available for each contract.

Private

Some of the contract data is classified as private and only visible to the party owning the data.

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Note:

Private data exists in multiple attribute values, one for each party, where each party can only see its own copy.

The _private object contains attributes that are visible only to a specific set of parties.

Signing period expiration

The signing_period_expiration object contains attributes related to the contract signing deadline.

There are three types of the signing_period_expiration setting:

• never
• days_after_publish
• fixed_date.

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Note:

You can specify the days_after_published type only before the contract is published, and once the contract is published, the system will convert it to fixed_date.

Value

The value object contains all attributes related to the contract value.

Private ownerside

The _private_ownerside object contains attributes that are only visible to the owner-side party. The owner-side party is the party that created the contract.

Permissions

The _permissions object contains permissions for various operations possible within the contract. The permission format is ''contract:'' followed by a specific operation, such as ''contract:create.'' Currently, only the delete contract permission is displayed.

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Note:

Permissions are always set for the current user. If the permission is set to true, the user will be able to perform the specified operation; otherwise, the operation will be disabled for the current user.

Attachment file groups

The attachment_file_groups contain the list of files uploaded to the contract as attachments.

Attachment file groups attributes

The table below contains the list of all the attributes available for a Attachment file groups within a contract.

Private owner-side attachment file groups

Files

Available options

The available_options object gives information about the capabilities of the contract, such as which delivery channels, sign methods, and two-step authentication methods are available for the contract and lists the data types the contract can receive.

Delivery channels

The delivery_channels array of objects indicates the available methods by which the contract can be delivered to its participants.

The table below shows what attributes and the contract signing methods are required for a participant, depending on the selected delivery channel method.
All attributes marked with * are required.
It is required to use one of the available methods marked with **.

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Note:

For a free plan account, you can select only email and none as delivery_channel method and only standard_esign as sign_methodwhen adding a counterparty participant.

Delivery channel name

The table below displays all methods available for the delivery_channels object name attribute.

Sign methods

The sign_methods array of objects shows available methods of signing contracts.

Sign method name

The table below shows all methods available for the sign_methods array of objects name attribute.

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Note:

To be able to use SMS-signing, you first need to activate the SMS extension. The same goes for all eIDs.

Two-step authentication methods

The two-step authentication is an optional way to increase your contract security by ensuring that only the intended recipient can access the contract.

The two_step_authentication_methods array of objects shows the available two-step authentication methods.

The table below shows what participant-related attributes are required, depending on the two-step authentication method.
All attributes marked with * are required.

Two-step authentication method name

The table below shows all methods available for the two_step_authentication_methods object name attribute.

Lifecycle

The lifecycle of a contract, also called the contract duration, is the status of the contract after it has been signed.

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Note:

Lifecycle applies only to signed contracts.

The lifecycle of a contract tells you when a contract starts and ends, whether it's active, ended, or canceled, when a recurring contract enters a new period, etc.

The contract lifecycle consists of:

• Lifecycle state
• Lifecycle settings.

Lifecycle state

When a participant signs the contract, the contract gets a secondary lifecycle state.

The lifecycle state keeps track of the contract status, which can be awaiting, active, or ended. There are also composite states (see also Composite), or substates, for canceled (for active), and terminated (for ended).

Awaiting

Contracts that have a duration normally become active as soon as they are signed.
However, a contract may have a start date in the future. Those contracts enter the awaiting lifecycle state upon being signed and remain so until the start date comes. Then they transition to active.

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Example:

An example is renting a cabin for one week in June. When the contract is signed in March, the contract does not become active immediately but rather is awaiting until that week in June, when it becomes active.

Active

Active contracts are contracts with a duration where the start date has passed (or was not set), the end date has not yet come, and the contract has not been terminated.

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Example:

Continuing with the cabin example: the contract is only active for that one week in June (before it was awaiting and after the active state, it will be ended.)

Canceled

A contract of a recurring type can be canceled. If canceled before the end of the notice period, the contract will end at the end of the current period. If canceled after the end of the notice period, the contract will end at the end of the next period.
A canceled contract will remain active until the end of the contract period (set by the period attribute, see the table below).

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Example:

Let's take a recurring contract with a one-year duration that starts at the beginning of the year. If you have a one-month notice period and cancel the contract before December, the contract ends at the end of the year. Otherwise, it will be in effect until the end of next year.

Ended

A contract with a duration that has ended gets the ended state. A contract can end naturally (not canceled or manually terminated) or terminated (substate or ended).

Terminated

A contract can be terminated in two ways:

• The contract is canceled and passed the end date.
• The contract is terminated manually.
  Terminating a contract manually will make it end immediately.

Lifecycle state attributes

In addition to the awaiting, active, or ended states, known in the contract table as lifecycle, the lifecycle state also refers to a set of values that make up the entire lifecycle state of the contract. The table below displays all attributes available for the lifecycle_state object.

Composite

The lifecycle composite attribute summarizes the attributes of the current lifecycle state. It is more detailed than the lifecycle_state attribute and is meant to be used to distinguish between all possible contract states of a contract in your code without having to look at other lifecycle attributes.

In addition to the lifecycle_state attribute, the composite attribute indicates whether the contract is recurring, which means that it can be renewed over a set of periods (see the lifecycle_state object Duration types.) It also shows if the recurring contract was canceled. Finally, it shows whether the contract was terminated manually.

Lifecycle states

The table below displays all possible values of the lifecycle_state attribute.

Lifecycle settings

The lifecycle settings determine which lifecycle the contract will go through after it is signed. Will it have a duration? What is the duration? Is it recurring? When can it be canceled? When will it start? Etc.
The table below displays all the attributes available for the lifecycle_settings object.

Duration types

The table below shows the types of contract duration available for the lifecycle_settings object type attribute.

No duration type explained

The no_duration lifecycle setting is used for a lifecycle with no period, for example, a permanent employment contract.

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Note:

A contract that does not have a duration section is the same as setting type = no_duration and clearing all other parameters. Please, read our Help Center article about Contract duration and lifecycle settings for more information.

The table below shows different outputs for contracts with the no_duration type depending on the contract start date and signing status:

PDF file groups

PDF file groups contain the list of files uploaded as expanded_pdf to the contract (see Create a contract with a PDF).

PDF file groups attributes

The table below contains the list of all the attributes available for a PDF file groups within a contract.

Private owner-side pdf file groups

Files

State

The contract state indicates where the contract is in the signing process.

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Note:

You cannot change contracts that have been signed or declined.
After a participant has signed the contract, changing the contract will reset their signature, and they will need to sign again.

Links

Related contracts can be linked to each other. The list of linked contracts with their link types will be listed under links.

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Note:

You can have multiple contracts and different types of relationships linked to the same contract.

The table below displays all the attributes available for a link object.

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Note:

In the API response, the link type represents the target contract relationship to the main contract. However, in the Oneflow application, this is represented the other way around (i.e. Main contract relationship to the target contract). There is no difference for links with the type external.

If we take the main contract as X and the target contract as Y, following table explains how the API response and Oneflow application represent the relationship between two contracts.