Solved: Is this Contracting Workflow possible with automate?

Hi Everyone,

First time poster here. I'm not tech-savvy so I'm trying to get acquainted with the capabilities of various Microsoft tools to potentially simplify our contract request process for end-users, increase efficiency and productivity of my contracting staff, and provide better data insights to leadership regarding contract management and spend, etc. I would appreciate if someone could weigh-in on the feasibility of this hypothetical contracting workflow. Alternate suggestions are welcomed.

Target State Contracting Workflow

Contract Intake (Microsoft Forms) End-user within the organization submits a Contract Request (Microsoft Form) that details the general information of the contract/procurement (commodity type, funding source, department ID, second party and contact info, start date etc)
Contract Intake Review and Approval (Microsoft Approvals) + Contract Development (WORD, PDF, Docusign, Microsoft Approvals): A Contract Specialist reviews the submitted form and makes a determination (Approve/Reject/Return for Edit).
1. Return for Edit - The form is returned to the End-user because it lacked critical information (I know that we could set responses as required however I anticipate End-Users still write things like "I don't know" as free text answers).
2. Reject - The End-User is notified that their Contract Request is rejected when there is already an existing contract for a similar good or service or another method of procurement is recommended.
3. Approve - The End-User is notified that their Contract Request has been approved and has been assigned to a Contract Specialist to complete. Ideally, the following actions would initiate automatically:
  1. An automated Risk Assessment is performed using the responses from the Contract Request (Microsoft Form). Currently, we're performing this Risk Assessment manually in Excel. I created a spreadsheet that mirrors the format and questions in our current Contract Request form (from a 3rd party app) and the Contract Specialist indicates whether a particular risk element is present or not (Yes/No) using data validation and conditional formatting. I strung together a series of nested CountIF functions that will take the Contract Specialist's input and make a determination on whether the contract should be handled as High, Medium, or Low Risk according to our criteria. Target-state, a tool would automatically review the Contract Request form and determine the risk level. (Need to Identify a Microsoft Tool; Can Copilot do this by referencing a risk matrix?)
  2. Justification forms are automatically updated with the information extracted from the Contract Request (Microsoft Form), reviewed for accuracy by the Contracting Specialist, and then automatically routed to the appropriate people for signature. (Form Data > PDF > Docusign)
  3. Contract Template Selection and fill-in; A contract specialist determines the appropriate template and it's updated using the form data from the Contract Request (Form Data > WORD > Approvals). A draft is produced and reviewed for accuracy, and escalated to JD review if necessary.
Contract Negotiation: Parties arrive at a final draft and it's routed for signature before upload into the Contract Management System (Docusign + CMS). End-User is notified that their Contract has been executed and they can proceed with a requisition/SOW. Ideally, I would like to get away from our current CMS because it doesn't talk to our other systems very well and the interface is lacking. Interested if Microsoft's suite can serve as a replacement considering we do most everything else in Outlook, Teams, Sharepoint.

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