Welcome to the start of your automation journey with Checkbox. In this guide, you’ll learn how to get started with building on the Checkbox platform.
We’re going to build an App that allows an end user to automatically generate a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) so that confidential information can be shared with another party.
The App will allow the end user to fill out a simple digital form to automatically generate the final document for use. Alternatively, more complex scenarios can be escalated to the Legal team for review.
At the end of this guide, you'll have designed an NDA App that suits your organisation’s needs and processes. This will equip you with all the basic skills required to start exploring the platform and build your own use-cases.
There will be 4 key parts to this app:
- Capture information about the both parties to the agreement, its purpose and flag any special circumstances requiring additional agreement clauses.
- Generate a draft NDA.
- If required, escalate the NDA to Legal team for review.
- Receive a notifications with a finalised document attached.
The resulting App design should look similar to the following:
Step 1: Marking Up your NDA Template
The NDA App needs to collect the necessary information to create the correct version of the NDA for the user. Let’s start by understanding what information needs to be collected.
- Make a copy of your existing NDA Word document for this step.
- Highlight in yellow the static information you need to collect from the user (e.g. address, date of agreement, name of counterparty)
- Highlight in purple the conditional information (special clauses or phrases that only Appear given certain conditions)
Step 2: Building the App
Now you're ready to start building your NDA app. First, you'll need to create a new App in the Checkbox Studio.
Next, let’s create the questions we’ll need to ask the end user to capture the static and conditional information we highlighted in step 1.
- Turn each of the yellow highlights into a question.
- Turn Each of the purple highlights into one or more question(s).*
You can add questions to your app by creating a new FORM block and adding the questions to it. To do this:
- Open up a form block. Drag a form block on to the canvas, click on the block and then click ‘open form builder’ to create a form.
- Build out all your questions. Use a paragraph for questions, and experiment with the response field type depending on the question.
The Studio auto-saves your progress as you build, so no need to worry about saving.
Step 3: Adding a Transcript (Optional)
Transcripts are powerful tools that allow end-users to review and edit their answers. This can be used at any point within an App and displays a summary of all previous questions and responses.
To add a transcript to your App:
- Drag a transcript block on to the canvas, and connect it to your last form block.
Step 4: Add a step for review by Legal
When creating your NDA, there may certain cases where the document should be reviewed by the legal team before allowing the employee to use it.
To account for this case, in step 6 we will:
- Use conditional pathways to send each assessment to the correct channel
- Create a workflow to allow the legal team to view the document and provide feedback and/or upload an amended document.
- Send the review results back to the original user via another workflow block.
Start with the section structure. The easiest way to visualise the workflow is by setting out the blocks. Don’t worry about content just yet – drag and arrange the block on the canvas as shown.
Create the conditional pathways. These work exactly the same way as the conditional questions – click on the arrow, and add the condition into the property editor. Conditional pathways always come from questions asked earlier in the assessment. Go back and create the question for the condition if needed.
Workflow allows us to pass an assessment from one person to another by sending a customised email to the next party to notify them. To design a workflow we:
- Customise the first workflow block. This allows you to:
- Define the Legal team as a Workflow Group by clicking on the plus button and
- Assign the assessment to User (the Legal Team), which allows them to view the document and add their feedback.
- Customise the legal review form. Add relevant questions to allow the reviewer to ensure the NDA is ready to be utilised.
- Customise the second workflow block. This returns the assessment back to it’s original creator.
There are many options for wrapping up your App – you could choose to just end with the employee generating the NDA or email it to the Counterparty, or even use an e-signature integration to allow all parties to sign the agreement.
Step 5: “Checkbox-ing” your NDA
Our last task in the Studio brings us back to our empty Doc Gen block. To generate our NDA from the App, we need to translate form questions into our NDA template using formatting similar to the App studio, and then upload this template to the Doc Gen block.
We strongly recommended reading this article on Rich Style Documents before beginning this step.
In a copy of your marked-up NDA template:
- Replace all yellow highlights with the name of the variable that collects this info. Remove the supporting question which we used to create the App.
- Replace all purple highlights with this standard tag {{#variable_name == “answer”}}YOUR TEXT HERE{{/}}. Remove the supporting question which we used to create the App. Note that the colour is for demonstration only and is not required.
- Upload this document to the doc gen block. In the doc gen block property editor, tick the “use docx template” and upload your document by clicking on the blue button that Appears.
Step 6: Publishing your App
You made it! Congratulations on completing your NDA - all the hard yards are done, publishing is the easy part.
Publishing your Application enables you to assign it to a project team for deployment. This signifies that a version of your Application has been completed and is ready for users outside of the preview screens.
To publish your App:
- Access the App landing page by clicking "Apps" in the top navigation bar and selecting the App you want to publish. Click on “Versions and Publishing”
- In the list of “Active Versions”, click the Action Icon for the version you wish to publish. Click “Publish” to publish your App.
- When prompted to create a Project Team, select “Yes” and then “Internal Access”. Internal Project Teams requires users to sign in before starting or continuing assessments.
Learn more about deploying Apps by clicking here