COBBLESTONE SOFTWARE

Contract Insight — User Guide

Application Settings

Application Configuration: System-Wide Settings

Note: Each procedure in this guide begins at the Contract Insight homepage, so any section can be followed on its own. Application configuration changes how Contract Insight behaves for everyone and should be performed by an Application Administrator.

 1. Overview

Application configuration is the layer of settings that governs how Contract Insight behaves for every user: how sessions time out, how e-mail is sent, how passwords and security behave, what the Vendor/Client Gateway exposes, and how the scheduled jobs run. It is the first area an administrator works through when a system is brought online, and the place to return to whenever system-wide behavior needs adjusting.

The configuration is organized so that an administrator can work through it without needing to know where each individual value lives. Settings are grouped into categories on one screen, every setting is searchable by name or description, and the areas that need a screen of their own — licensing, the navigation menu, sessions — are reachable from the Administration page as tools in their own right.

A change to a setting takes effect as soon as it is saved and applies to everyone, so it is worth being deliberate about what is being changed and why.

2. Where Application Configuration Lives

The Administration page is the entry point, and the configuration areas are these tools:

• Application Settings — the system-wide configuration values, organized by category. This is the main body of AppConfig.
• Initial Setup — the license and activation keys and the core addresses that bring a new system online.
• Navigation Menu — the design of the left navigation menu and which workspace each employee sees.
• Session Manager — who is signed in right now, with the ability to sign someone out.
• License & Session Usage — seats in use, peak usage by license type, and sign-in history.
• Data Import and Bulk Import Attachments — bulk loading of records and of attachments.
• Scheduled Jobs — the work that runs on a timer, including alert e-mails, imports and indexing.

Note: Employees are managed from the Directory area of the application rather than from Administration, and field-level configuration — which fields appear on which record type — is handled by Field Management and Tab Details Setup.

3. The Application Settings Screen

Open it as follows:

From the Contract Insight homepage, click Administration at the bottom of the left navigation menu. On the Administration page, under Configuration & Fields, select Application Settings.

The screen is laid out in three parts:

• A search box across the top — “Search every setting by name or description…” — that searches every setting in the system
• A CATEGORIES rail down the left, each category showing how many settings it holds — Collaborative Online Editor, Contracts, Database Integration, Document Authoring, Email Manager, Employees, General System, Notification Theme, One-Off Email Subject, Purchase Orders, Push Notifications, Requests, Schedule Manager, the three Scheduled Jobs categories, Search, Security, SMS Messaging, Solicitations, System Out Date, Team Server Config, Vendor/Client Gateway, Vendors / Customers, Visdom Services, and Other
• A settings pane on the right showing the selected category, the number of settings it holds, and the settings themselves grouped under sub-headings

Each setting shows its name, a description of what it controls, and — where it has been changed — a Last changed line naming the date and the person. The control sits on the right of the row and varies with the setting: a text box for a value, an On / Off toggle for a switch, or an Edit content button where the setting holds a block of HTML.

Note: The subtitle at the top of the screen states the terms plainly: these are “settings that change how Contract Insight behaves for everyone”, and “a change takes effect as soon as you save it”.

4. Finding a Setting

Steps:

1. From the Contract Insight homepage, click Administration at the bottom of the left navigation menu. On the Administration page, under Configuration & Fields, select Application Settings. 
2. To browse, click a category in the CATEGORIES rail. The pane on the right lists that category’s settings, grouped under sub-headings, with the count shown beside the category name.
3. To search, type a word from the setting’s name or description into the search box at the top — for example “session timeout”.
4. Read the match count shown in the search box and above the results, for example “2 matching ‘session timeout’”. The counts against each category update to show how many matches each one holds.
5. Click the × in the search box to clear the search and return to browsing by category.

Note: Some results appear under a heading badged Search only — set up on its own screen. Those settings are surfaced by the search so they can be found, but they are maintained on their own screen — the Application Setup values, for instance, are edited on the Initial Setup screen described in Section 6.

5. Changing a Setting

Steps:

1. From the Contract Insight homepage, click Administration at the bottom of the left navigation menu. On the Administration page, under Configuration & Fields, select Application Settings.
2. Find the setting by category or search, and read its description to confirm it is the one you intend to change.
3. Change the value using the control on the right of the row — type into the text box, click the toggle to switch it On or Off, or click Edit content where the setting holds HTML.
4. Repeat for any other settings being changed in the same pass; changes are held until saved.
5. Click Save changes in the upper right to apply them, or Discard to abandon them and restore the saved values.

Note: Save changes and Discard stay unavailable until something has actually been changed, so an accidental visit to the screen cannot alter anything. The refresh icon beside them reloads the settings from the system, discarding anything unsaved.

6. Initial Setup: Licensing and Core Addresses

From the Administration page, under Configuration & Fields, select Initial Setup — “the license keys and core settings that bring a new system online. Everything here applies to everyone.”

The screen opens with status cards summarizing the system’s licensing:

• License key — whether the key is validated, and the licensing model in use
• Activation — the activation type and the account number
• Admin, Super, Standard and Read-only user licenses — how many of each are active, against the maximum permitted

Beneath the cards, the Application Licensing section holds the Application Activation Key and the Application License Key. Each shows whether it is set and how long it is, with a Replace key button rather than the key itself. The Initial Setup section beneath holds the core addresses the system needs, such as the Agent Address, API Site Address and Bulk Processor Website Address. Discard and Save changes sit in the upper right, as on the Application Settings screen.

Note: The licensing section carries its own warning: CobbleStone provides these keys when Contract Insight is purchased, and changing the license key signs everyone out. Treat a key replacement as a planned change rather than a routine edit.

7. Working Through the Configuration

Where a system is being configured for the first time, working outward from the core is the most reliable order: confirm licensing and the core addresses on Initial Setup; work through the Application Settings categories that matter for the deployment — General System, Security, Email Manager, and the record areas in use; then shape what people see with Navigation Menu, Field Management and Tab Details Setup.

Once the system is live, the same screens serve as the place to adjust behaviour. Because every setting carries a description and a Last changed line, the Application Settings screen also acts as a record of what has been altered and by whom.

Note: Change one thing at a time on a live system and confirm the effect before moving on. Settings apply to everyone the moment they are saved, and a change made alongside several others is harder to attribute if behaviour shifts unexpectedly.

8. Quick Reference Summary