Review stage

🎯 Objective

In this article, you will understand how the Review Stage works in netLex — what it is, how to configure the Negotiator, Conditional Approvals, and Restart of Approvals, as well as knowing the complete negotiation dynamics to ensure that your documents always advance with security and control.

Este artigo contém as seções:

• What is the Review Stage?
• How to configure the Negotiator
• How to configure Conditional Approvals
• How to configure the Restart of Approvals
• Negotiation Dynamics
• Skip Review and Return to Review
• Frequently asked questions

💡 What is the Review Stage?

The Review Stage is a phase of the workflow that offers a dynamic process of negotiation, review, and approval of documents. In it, the document is evaluated, edited, and approved in multiple rounds, involving both the external counterparty and internal approvers.

Unlike common approval stages, the Review Stage was designed to ensure security and control during negotiation. The flow automatically adapts to changes made to the document — and, with the restart condition, critical approvals always fall upon the most current version of the draft.
 

🛠️ How to configure the Negotiator

The Negotiator is the user responsible for leading the external negotiation with the counterparty, managing the turns of sending and receiving the document through the external review tool.

Some important features about this role:

• It is not a traditional approver: the Negotiator does not approve the stage to advance the flow, but has permissions to manage the review while the document is in this phase.
• Can edit the document: editing is possible directly through the platform editor or via Word desktop. The editing permission respects the document template configurations and the user's access profile.

Step-by-step to configure:

1. In the Negotiator block, the responsible party is already defined as the Author of the document.
2. To change it, click on the trash can icon to remove the current responsible party.

3. Click on Add responsible party and choose among the options: Author of the document, a specific User, a Team, or via Questionnaire.
    

   

✅ How to configure Conditional Approvals

Approvals within the Review Stage are configured with activation conditions: they only occur when specific conditions are met, making the process more efficient and secure.

The available conditions are:

• Risk Conditions: based on document properties, such as "contract value greater than X" or "advance payment exists".
• Altered Document: automatically identifies if the draft was modified after its creation. It is recommended to use this condition to ensure that the document can be negotiated freely, but goes through approval if the standard draft is altered.
• Always: approval is always requested, regardless of any condition.

💡 Tip: If no approval condition is met, the review stage is automatically skipped. If you want the Negotiator to decide when the stage can be closed, add them also as an approver — this way, the stage will only be completed after their validation, even without other active approvals.

Step-by-step to configure:

1. In the Approvers block, click on Add approvers.
2. Define a name for the approval — the title identifies the role being fulfilled (e.g., "Legal Approval" or "Financial Validation").
3. Define who will be responsible for the approval: it can be the Author, a specific User, a Team, or via Questionnaire.
4. Define when the approval will be necessary. It is possible to combine multiple rules (e.g., "contract value greater than X" OR "advance payment exists"). It is also possible to define that approval is always necessary.

5. Optional: configure the deadline for approval and when the approval will be restarted.

   

🔄 How to configure the Restart of Approvals

With the Restart of Approvals, an approval already performed can be requested again if the document undergoes new changes. The system identifies these edits automatically and restarts the configured steps, ensuring that approvals always occur on the most updated version of the draft.

Important points about this feature:

• The restart does not replace the activation condition: the approval will only be demanded again if its activation rule is met. The restart only ensures that it is requested another time if the document changes after the approval has been performed.
• With restart active, approvals become relative to the current version of the document. If negotiation continues — whether by external review or internal changes — the previous approval becomes insufficient and is requested again.

Step-by-step to configure:

1. On the desired approver, activate the option When the approval will be restarted.
    

   

🤝 Negotiation Dynamics

With the Negotiator, Conditional Approvals, and Restart configured, external negotiations and internal reviews happen in a fluid and secure way, in as many rounds as necessary. See how the flow behaves in practice:

• A change in the draft or contract conditions automatically triggers the necessary approvals.
• New changes to the text of the draft restart approvals already performed (when configured).
• If all internal approvals are completed, but the document is still under external review, the stage remains in progress until the Negotiator closes the process.
• If the external review is completed without changes, the document advances automatically to signature.
• If the external review is completed with changes, approvals with restart configured are opened again.

⚠️ The Review Stage will only be finalized when all active approvals are completed and the external review is closed.
 

⏭️ Skip Review and Return to Review

The Review Stage was designed to be intelligent and agile: when no approval condition is met, it is automatically skipped, speeding up the flow.

• Skip Review Stage: if the activation rules determine that no approval is necessary (such as in contracts without changes to the standard draft and of low risk), the stage does not occur and the document goes directly to signature.
• Return to Review: if the document reaches signature and a need for changes or negotiation arises, it is possible to return (reject) the document back to the Review Stage — even if it was previously skipped.

In this scenario, an activity is opened for the Negotiator so that they can negotiate and adjust the document. The changes made can trigger new approvals, which will need to be completed before the document returns to signature.

 

❓ Frequently asked questions

Can the Negotiator approve the stage to advance the flow in the review stage?
No. The Negotiator manages the review and external negotiation, but does not function as a traditional approver. If you want them to validate the closing of the stage, add them also as an approver.

Does the approval restart always request approval again in the review stage?
No. The restart is only triggered if the approval's activation condition is met again. The restart ensures that approvals already made are redone when the document changes — but always respecting the configured rules.

Is it possible to return to the Review Stage even if it has been skipped?
Yes! If the document reaches signature and the need for negotiation or change is identified, it is possible to return it to the Review Stage, even if it has not occurred previously.

Can I have more than one approver in the Review Stage?
Yes. It is possible to add as many approvers as necessary, each with their own activation conditions and restart rules.

Is the Review Stage available in workflow 1/classic and workflow 2/nextgen?
This configuration is only available in workflow 2/nextgen.