Hi team, would it be possible to enable the exporting of documents in tracked changes mode containing with all of the colour coding for each change made? At the moment, the export features are all disabled (see attached screenshot). For long documents (and for certain user testers), having that ability to download the document containing tracked changes and print it onto paper to mark up any changes required is an easier and quicker task than having to separately document changes required to the automated document. Thank you for your consideration.
Hi Mary-Jane,
The partial screenshot you showed, seems to be taken immediately after you invoked the “Show last changes” option (or Alt-clicked).
Which of the two options are you suggesting?
- Export a comparison between the initial state of the document (i.e., immediately after you opened it) and the current state of the document
- Export a comparison between the previous state of the document (i.e., before you changed some answer) and the current state of the document.
If your question is about a Clause9 document for which you find it difficult to see all the available variations of certain clauses, then you may want to have a look at the “Uncover” functionality:
This results in a DOCX file that shows all the different options embedded in each paragraph. This is especially relevant if someone outside the automation team needs to review the automated document, and is unaware of the many variations that are hidden beneath the surface:
hi Maarten,
I’m looking for an option which would allow a user to see every single change they are making to the document preview when they are filling out the Q&A, while invoking the “Always show changes” option, and once the user has completed the Q&A, they can then export the document (with all tracked changes and colour coding) for their review. This request will predominantly be for ClauseBuddy as this is where users will interact with their Q&A from our side but certainly the same feature can be implemented for Clause9 as well.
With respect to that “Uncovered Export” function you mention, I can’t see to locate that in my … feature in Clause9 (even through the Admin account). Could you please provide more clarity as to where I can locate that feature? I would like to try it out and see whether we can leverage that option to satisfy the above request.
Many thanks!
1. So I understand that you’re happy with the “Always show changes” option (that already exists and allows users to always see the last changes on the screen), but suggest an additional option that allows end-users to download a PDF/DOCX file that compares the initial version of the document with the current version?
The reason I’m asking so explicitly, is that I feel I’m missing some context about what you try to achieve for your end-users. It’s certainly possible to add a new export-option (e.g., “Compare to initial template”) to the dropdown list, but that list already contains quite some options, so I would like to understand the functional goal better, before adding yet another option.
For example, in a traditional MS Word-based workflow, when starting from a template, lawyers would typically not want to compare their current version of the documen against the initial version of the template — I at least never did so in my own former law practice. I would expect that in an automated world, where many possible versions of the document can be integrated into one Q&A, and the initial version of the underyling template just happens to reflect the default position chosen by the template author, a comparison would be even less relevant?
If lawyers are worried whether they chose the right options, I would imagine that the following features could already provide the necessary comfort:
- Send the filled answers to a colleague → often used by partners & senior associates to check the answers of a junior
- Export answers as Excel-file → alternative approach, when the partner / senior associate likes to work with Excel, instead of an interactive document
- By flagging questions as mandatory, you can show a warning about the fact that something’s missing.
- Through conditional logic attached to the cards/questions, you can warn about other things missing, or invalid options.
- In Clause9, thanks to the clause-based structure of the document, you can click on a paragraph, and then ask which questions modify that paragraph.
- In Clause9 you can highlight the values filled into placeholders.
But I guess there’s something I’m missing here, i.e. that you’re looking to give a certain type of comfort that is currently missing?
2. Regarding the “Uncovered export”: it only works with Clause9-based documents. Essentially you open a document in Assemble Document, and then click on the “…” button in the upper right corner, from which a dropdown menu will open. I just checked with your personal account, and it is activated, so you should see it.
Hi Maarten, thank you for this - yes, the additional option that I believe would help our users would be one that allows end-users to download a PDF/DOCX file that compares the initial version of the document with the current version - essentially we would want to be able to compare the end-result document containing all of the changes made to the document from the Q&A answers vs the original state of the document (ie before the Q&A was filled in) and have the ability to download/print all of the tracked changes made, complete with colour coding as well that is already implemented, ie yellow for changed blocks, green for insertions and red for deletions. Is this something that can be considered?
We had an discussion about this with out internal product team, and we’ll indeed proceed with the implementation. Thanks for the suggestion!
Amazing!! Thank you for considering the suggestion and going ahead with its implementation, it will be great news for our testers can I please check if it will be implemented in both Clause9 and ClauseBuddy and also the timeframe for implementation?
So good!! Thanks very much!