Manage contract repository agentic workflow

Release version: Australia

Updated March 12, 2026

5 minutes to read

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Summary of Manage contract repository agentic workflow

The Manage contract repository agentic workflow automates the extraction of metadata and obligations from signed contracts, helping ServiceNow customers enhance productivity in contract management. It sets contract reminder dates for renewals or terminations, enabling proactive contract lifecycle management.

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To utilize this workflow, users must have appropriate roles and data access permissions configured for AI agents and the agentic workflow. Activation of relevant business rules and Now Assist skills is required for autonomous operation. The workflow is accessible through the Now Assist panel, which must be enabled.

Key Features

Metadata Extraction and Contract Reminders: Uses the Now Assist contract metadata extraction skill to automatically extract key contract metadata upon contract record creation. Contract Managers review and approve this metadata in the playbook, then set or adjust contract reminder dates based on contract end dates, auto-renewal clauses, and notice periods. Default notice periods apply if none are specified.
Obligation Extraction: Employs the Now Assist contract obligation extraction skill to identify contractual obligations, which Contract Managers can accept or reject in the playbook. Accepted obligations are added to the contract record’s Obligations tab, with obligation tasks created based on predefined schedules or manually for ad hoc tasks. Assigned users receive notifications and submit tasks for review, which Obligation Fulfillers approve or reject.
Agentic Workflow Trigger Conditions: The workflow triggers automatically when a contract record is created, contingent on roles assigned to the "Assigned to" user or group managers, ensuring only authorized personnel engage with the AI-driven process. It is supported in the Now Assist panel but not in the Virtual Agent panel.
AI Agent Utilization: The Contract Repository AI agent integrates multiple tools to retrieve contract details, extract metadata and obligations from documents, and calculate average lead times for similar contracts, streamlining contract analysis and management.

Practical Considerations for ServiceNow Customers

Ensure your roles include permissions for AI agents (e.g., sncmgenai.aicontractfulfiller, nowassistpaneluser) and that data access permissions for Now Assist skills are correctly configured.
Activate necessary business rules to allow autonomous AI agent operation and review workflow customization to maintain autonomy.
Utilize the Now Assist panel for interactive review and management of extracted metadata and obligations.
Leverage the automated reminder and obligation task features to stay ahead of contract renewals, terminations, and compliance obligations.

Use the manage contract repository agentic workflow to improve productivity by extracting metadata and obligations automatically from signed contracts and setting the contract reminder dates for contract renewal or termination.

Manage contract repository overview

Important:

To use the agentic workflow for your workspace, your role must be configured to use the agentic workflow, and the data access permissions must be set for the AI agents and the agentic workflow.
For more information, see Configuring user access and data permissions for agentic workflows and Configuring user access and data permissions for AI agents.
The data access permissions must be set for the Now Assist skills, contract metadata extraction, and contract obligation extraction.
For more information, see Configure data permissions for Now Assist skills.
To run the AI agents autonomously, ensure that the business rules for the agentic workflow are activated. For more information, see Activate business rules for the Manage contract repository agentic workflow.
If you have customized the manage contract repository agentic workflow, make sure to update the script include to run it autonomously. For more information, see Update the contracts AI agents handler script include.
To view the agentic workflow in the Now Assist panel, turn on the Now Assist panel. For more information, see Activate the Now Assist panel standard chat.

The manage contract repository agentic workflow uses an AI agent to do the following sequentially.

Extract metadata from signed contracts.
Calculate the contract reminder date for renewal and termination.
Extract obligations from signed contracts.

Metadata extraction and contract reminders

The AI agent uses Now Assist contract metadata extraction skill to extract key metadata from signed contracts. Once the metadata extraction is complete, you can open the playbook to review the extracted information and set the contract reminder date.

The following workflow explains the metadata extraction and contract reminder setup process.

As a Contract Admin with the AI role, activate the contract metadata extraction skill in the Now Assist Admin console.
For more information, see Configure Now Assist in Contract Management.
As a Contract Admin, activate the business rules.
The metadata extraction process is automatically initiated when a contract record is created.
Once the extraction is complete, the Contract Manager with the AI role receives a notification indicating that the metadata is ready for review.
The Contract Manager reviews the extracted metadata and submits it to update the contract repository.
The contract reminder date is then calculated based on the following factors:
- Contract end date
- Presence of auto-renewal clause
- Notice period for contract renewal or termination
  Note:
  If the renewal notice period and termination notice period aren’t available, it uses the configured default notice period. For more information, see Set the default notice period for the Manage contract repository agentic workflow.
The Contract Manager sets the contract reminders in the playbook by reviewing the calculated date and configuring the recipient list for the reminders.

For more information, see Review AI-extracted metadata and contract reminder date.

Obligation extraction

The AI agent uses Now Assist contract obligation extraction skill to extract key contractual obligations from contracts. Once extracted, you can review the obligations within the contract playbook and choose to accept or reject them. Accepted obligations are added as records in the Obligations tab of the contract record.

The following workflow explains the obligation extraction process.

As a Contract Admin with the AI role, activate the contract obligation extraction skill in the Now Assist Admin console.
For more information, see Configure Now Assist in Contract Management.
As a Contract Admin, activate the business rules.
The obligation extraction process is automatically initiated when a contract record is created.
Once the extraction is complete, the Contract Manager with the AI role receives a notification indicating that obligations are ready for review.
The Contract Manager reviews the extracted obligations within the contract playbook. Each obligation can be accepted or rejected based on relevance.
Approved obligations are automatically added as obligation records in the Obligations tab of the contract record.
Obligation tasks are created.
- For a recurring schedule, the obligation tasks are automatically created for the obligation record based on the defined schedule.
- For an ad hoc schedule, the contract manager creates an obligation task from the Obligation tasks tab in the contract record.
The assigned user is notified when the obligation task is created.
The assigned user works on the obligation task and submits it for review.
The state of the obligation task changes from Open to Awaiting approval.
The Obligation Fulfiller reviews the task and approves or rejects it.
- If the obligation task is rejected, the state of the task changes to Open, and the assigned user continues to work on it.
- If the obligation task is approved, the state of the task changes to Completed.

For more information, see Review AI-extracted obligations.

Conditions for the agentic workflow to trigger

The manage contract repository agentic workflow for a non-self-served request is triggered as soon as the contract repository record is created and the Assigned to user in the request has the sn_cm_gen_ai.ai_contract_fulfiller and now_assist_panel_user role.

The manage contract repository agentic workflow for a self-served request is triggered as soon as the contract repository record is created and the following conditions are met:

The group manager of the Assignment group has the now_assist_panel_user role.
If there’s no group manager for the Assignment group, one of the users in the Assignment group has the now_assist_panel_user role.
If the user requested changes on the contract request, the Assigned to user or the group manager in the request has the sn_cm_gen_ai.ai_contract_fulfiller and now_assist_panel_user role.

Contract fulfillers and assignment group managers with the now_assist_panel_user role can view the agentic workflow conversation in the Now Assist panel.

Note:

The agentic workflow isn’t supported in the Virtual Agent panel.

Accessing the agentic workflow

Role required: sn_aia.admin

If your generative AI service provider isn’t Now LLM Service, ensure that the API connections and credentials are configured. For more information, see Configuring API credentials for generative AI capabilities.

Navigate to All > AI Agent Studio > Create and manage.
Select Manage contract repository.

AI agents used in the manage contract repository agentic workflow

Table 1. AI agents names and descriptions
Name	Description
Contract Repository AI agent	Uses various tools to perform the following: Retrieves the contract repository details, such as contract vendor, contract model, contract document's attachment ID, and so on from a specific contract repository record. Extracts metadata from signed contact documents based on the applicable use case in the contract metadata extraction skill. Extracts obligations from signed contact documents based on the applicable use case in the contract obligation extraction skill. Calculates the average lead time for similar contracts.