I just finished off a contract type manager today. This is basically a two-file routine which allows an administrator to add, modify and delete contract types. For those not familiar with CMapp, a contract type is a record from the database table “contract_types” – the record consists (basically) of a shortcut (such as “NDA”), an actual_name (such as “Non-Disclosure Agreement”) and a description of this contract type. Why is this useful? Before a contract manager adds a contract record to CMapp, he/she has to choose a contract type from a drop-down list. The drop-down list selects all contract types from the contract_types table in the database. Next to this drop-down list is a small info symbol. When the user clicks on this, a pop-up window opens and displays all the requisite information about contract types.
I think it’s worthwhile to add a further feature to the contract type manager – a kind of Google search field which searches the Internet for new contract types. This could help to build up a substantial database of information on contracts which would be beneficial for contract managers. Of course, this doesn’t take from the fact that contract managers can also request to have contract types added. Maybe we should create a script to do just this…
