TechnoMile Contracts Suite (on Microsoft Dynamics) – 2024.3 Release Notes

The 2024.3 release delivers new efficiencies for contracts professionals, including CLM enhancements that simplify management of clauses and subcontract financial details, as well as numerous improvements to the CLM user interface and user experience (UI/UX). Agreement Management also sees UI/UX enhancements and gains new subcontract templates. In addition, this update introduces TechnoMile Transform Copilot, a powerful new tool that leverages generative AI and best-in-class Large Language Models to streamline the intake of any federal prime or subcontract, shaving significant time off contract set-up activities.

Feature Enhancements

• Contracts Suite: New Transform Copilot  
  This release introduces TechnoMile’s Transform Copilot, a powerful new tool that can be licensed alongside TechnoMile CLM to streamline the intake of any federal prime or subcontract, shaving significant time off contract set-up and freeing up contracts professionals to focus on higher-value activities. Capabilities of the Transform Copilot that excel beyond the features of our retired, legacy Intelligent Contract Ingestion solution include:
  • Flexibility to digitize and ingest any federal prime contract, subcontract, or purchase order to create detailed contract records (i.e., no longer limited to ingestion of only a handful of standard federal forms).
  • A highly intuitive new interface and user experience for data validation, which provide users with a side-by-side view showing exactly where each data point was extracted from the original document and where it will be mapped to create the contract record in the CLM. The improved workflow also streamlines the contract clause ingestion process and matching to your Clause Library.
  • Identification of data is powered by TechnoMile’s ElevateAI Service, which infuses our TechnoMile platform with the power of generative AI and best-in-class Large Language Models, underpinned by domain-trained technologies. TechnoMile trains its AI/ML models using industry-specific forms, subcontracts, and purchase orders, as well as leverages industry-specific prompts to deliver the most accurate, trustworthy outputs for GovCon and Aerospace and Defense companies.

• Contracts Suite: New Out-of-the-Box SharePoint Connector 
  TechnoMile now offers a standard between our Contracts Suite and a client’s online SharePoint site. This connector auto-generates a standardized folder structure upon creation of a new contract record, enforcing clean, consistent organization of files in SharePoint and making them easy for users to find and share. Clients that may be considering a new SharePoint environment (e.g., if your company has plans to move from on-prem to the cloud) should reach out to your TechnoMile Customer Success Manager (CSM) for more information about this connector.

• Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM): Clause Management Enhancements  
  This update significantly improves the Contract Clauses interface and user experience, enabling contracts professionals to quickly and easily search, find, and add new clauses to contracts, including:
  • A new, user-friendly interface enables users to filter by clause type and search for clauses based on keyword in the clause number or title. Users can then search by revision year or alternate, as well as view the clause summary to aid in clause selection.
  • Clauses are now automatically flagged as archived when a new version is added to the clause library. By default, users do not see archived clauses when adding clauses to a contract but can easily toggle to include archived clauses in search when entering an older contract.
  • From the clause search window, the user can easily see which clauses have already been added and which are still available to add to a contract.
  • The user can also add any contract-specific clauses to the contract using the same new interface.
  • Once added, the user can view all contract clauses in a single, unified view, providing a more intuitive user experience.
  • When viewing contract clauses, the Alternate field is now visible.

• CLM: Subcontract Financial Workflow Improvements  
  This update includes improvements to a subcontract’s CLIN and modification workflows that greatly simplify the entry of financial details into the CLM system, streamline the user experience, and help ensure the integrity of a subcontract record’s financial transaction details. Improvements include:
  • The Funding and CLIN Mod tabs on a CLIN/SLIN or modification record were replaced by a new Funding/Obligations tab that provides a consolidated view of the addition or removal of money associated with each transaction, simplifying the user experience.
  • When creating a CLIN, a new Quick Create wizard enables the user to capture both obligation and funding details on a single screen, streamlining manual creation of a new subcontract record or addition of a new modification.
  • Subcontract modification records now display a more descriptive title that includes the mod number and subcontract name.
  • The Obligated Cost, Fee, and Price fields are locked on the CLIN when the associated subcontract record is locked for the first time. This workflow enhancement prevents users from overwriting the financial details entered directly on the CLIN.
  • records now include a "Mod When Created" field that tracks the subcontract modification that was active when a CLIN/SLIN is created.

• CLM: Streamlined Creation and Maintenance of Child Contracts 
  Clients can now designate which fields on a parent contract record will be copied when creating its child contract records, as well as any fields that will be kept in sync throughout the life of the contracts, saving time by minimizing data entry. 

• CLM: OCI Quick Create Enhancement
  The OCI Quick Create form has been enhanced so that the user can rapidly designate OCI Reviewers, OCI Approvers, and OCI Final Reviewers by selecting users with the appropriate role(s) from a picklist, eliminating the need to manually type in users’ email addresses. 

• CLM: Wage Determination Improvement
  Now, when a user adds a wage determination, it is immediately visible in the table without having to refresh the screen.

• CLM: UI Improvements 
  This update includes several user interface improvements to streamline and simplify the user experience, including:
  • When using the CPAR feature, Send for Review is now located under the Actions menu. In addition, when adding a New Team Member, only roles and fields that are relevant for CPAR, along with the relevant list of users/employees, are displayed.
  • On the OCI feature, Send for Review, Review Done, Mark OCI Complete, and Send for Final Review are all now located under the Actions menu (and displayed only when appropriate as the user moves through the OCI workflow). In addition, when adding a New Team Member, only roles and fields that are relevant for OCI, along with the relevant list of users/employees, are displayed.
  • The Place of Performance section has been removed from the General tab.
  • On the Contract Mod and Subcontract Mod tabs, the unused Start Date and End Date fields have been removed.

• CLM: New Out-of-the-Box Workflows for Contracts and Mods 
  TechnoMile now offers a new set of out-of-the-box workflows to support contract and mod management business processes. Each includes a standard set of stages, review/approval workflows, and email notifications that support efficient, standardized processes as a contract or mod moves through its lifecycle. Clients looking to introduce more consistency to existing processes or simplify current workflows should reach out to your TechnoMile CSM for more information.

• Agreement Management: New Subcontract and Subcontract Mod Templates
  With this update, Agreement Management now includes standard templates for creation of subcontracts and subcontract mods, streamlining creation of these agreement types. The new templates populate key details from the subcontract/subcontract mod record, such as subcontractor and prime company names and contact information, period of performance, CLINs/SLINs, clause flowdowns, and labor categories/key personnel.

• Agreement Management: UI Improvements 
  With this update, Send for Review, Send for Approval, and Review Done are all now located under the Actions menu (and displayed only when appropriate as the user moves through the agreement workflow). In addition, when adding a New Team Member, only roles and fields that are relevant for agreements, along with the relevant list of users/employees, are displayed, streamlining and simplifying the user experience.

Issues Resolved

• Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM): Some clause titles are rendering with a special character in the middle of the text. 

• CLM: AIDAR clauses are missing from the clause library.

• CLM: Users cannot save a Limitation of Funds record unless Average Monthly Revenue is populated.

• CLM: Missing validations for Reviewers & Approvers within OCI workflows allow users to submit an OCI for review/approval without designating any recipients.

• CLM: If contract name is too long, it causes a critical error when trying to create a mod.

• CLM: If a task/delivery order is moved from one Master Agreement to another, the Order Financial Summary section is not updating to be reduced by the new order amounts.

• CLM: On definitive contracts, the IDIQ CLIN field is appearing on the Quick Create CLIN/SLIN form.

• CLM: The system is missing a validation to prevent the user from entering a Period of Performance with an end date prior to the start date.

• CLM: Wage determinations cannot be sorted by Publish Date.

• Agreement Management: The email notification is not generated when an agreement is sent for external review.