Change or retire a clause

Reword a published clause by starting a new draft version and publishing it, look back through its versions, or deprecate or archive a clause you no longer use.

In the sidebar, open Settings, then choose Clauses under Agreements, and press a clause's title (or Open detail in its row menu). The page address is /agreements/clauses/ followed by the clause. History adds /history to the address, and the editor adds /editor.

A published clause never changes, so agreements already sent keep the wording they were built with. To reword a clause you start a new draft version, edit it and publish it.

Before you start

• Starting or editing a draft needs permission to update clauses. Publishing needs permission to publish clauses, and deprecating or archiving need their own permissions. Buttons your role cannot use are missing or greyed out.
• A clause has at most one draft at a time.

Steps

1. Open the clause. The chips at the top show its status and its draft and published versions.
2. Press Create draft version. Nova copies the published wording into a new draft and opens the editor. If a draft already exists, press Open draft editor instead.
3. Change the Clause text or the fill-in details, and press Save draft.
4. Press Publish draft. In Publish clause draft?, add Release notes if you like and press Publish clause. Nova says Clause version published. and opens the history.
5. To retire a clause instead, find Clause lifecycle actions on the clause page. Press Deprecate (on an active clause) to mark it as not for new use, or Archive to remove it from the everyday clause list, and confirm. Agreements already sent keep their wording either way.

What you see

• Four tiles: Total versions, Variables (the fill-in details), Updated and Published.
• The wording of the current version with its fill-in details, a preview of the clause, and Version inventory with each version's notes and dates.
• History lists each version, marked Current live version or Editable draft. A draft has Edit draft, Publish and Archive. A published version has Deprecate and New draft from history, which opens Create clause draft version so you can pick the older version to start from, then Create draft.

If something looks different

• The editor shows Immutable published state: there is no draft. Press Create editable draft.
• Publish draft is greyed out in the editor: save your changes first.
• New draft from history is greyed out: a draft already exists. Publish it or archive it first.
• Create draft version is missing: your role cannot update clauses.

Open Clauses