Evaluating permissions for confidential contracts

Evaluate contract permissions using separate accounts for people who should read, edit, administer or be excluded from a confidential agreement. Check search results, record details, attachments, downloads, reports and notifications. A restriction on one folder or record helps only if no other route reveals the material.

Define the access rule first

Use fictional contracts for a routine supplier agreement, a restricted commercial agreement and a highly restricted people-related agreement. For each, decide who may find the record, read the document, edit metadata, change access and download a copy. Include a temporary reviewer whose access should end after the task.

Use cleared material with distinctive, harmless titles. Do not place a real sensitive agreement in a supplier demonstration account merely to test its settings.

Check how the controls combine

For any system, determine whether permissions apply to individual records, record types or both, and whether access can be conditional on workflow answers. Test an exceptional confidential contract within a usually accessible type. Inspect every group or role that grants access; a narrow record setting may not help if another grant gives wider access.

ContractWorks describes administrator-controlled access to folders and documents, and its published plans list permission-based user roles. Test what an authorised user can do within a folder, including viewing and downloading. Move a fictional confidential file into a broader folder and check the resulting access rather than assuming how permissions carry over.

For Docusign CLM, ask the supplier to demonstrate repository access controls against the same role matrix in the proposed account.

Follow every route out

Sign in as each test role and search for a phrase unique to the restricted contract. Try a direct record link, attachment, report and configured notification. Download a copy with an authorised role, remove that role's platform access and check what it can still reach. Record when the change takes effect and who can review it.

Revoking platform access cannot retrieve a copy already downloaded or forwarded. Decide who may export confidential agreements and how copies are handled under the organisation's process. Repeat the search and direct-link checks with the excluded role after the access change, confirming that the record, attachment and identifying details are unavailable.

Key Security Metrics for Confidential Contract Access