Deviations are changes to contract terms in a business document that make them different from the standards established by both of the following:
Contract terms in the contract template associated with the business document.
Policy rules of Contract Expert that apply to the business document.
Note: Because deviations are based on contract terms and rules associated with a contract template, the concept of contract term deviations does not apply to business documents that their Contract Source is Attached Document.
The actions that trigger clause deviations are:
You add non-standard clauses to the business document.
You change the Display Name of a clause; the clause becomes non-standard.
You remove clauses from the business document.
Clauses are required by Contract Expert rules to be either included or removed from the business document, and you have not completed all the Contract Expert requirements.
For a clause on a business document, later versions of the clause are available in the Library.
You add standard clauses or their alternates to the business document.
You negotiate and include terms to the business document that exceed pre-approved company policies and regulatory limits.
The following actions and changes are not considered as deviations:
You add a non-standard clause to the document and then delete the clause.
You change a section name or update or delete sections.
A standard clause has been deleted and added later manually.
You use the Renumber and Move features.
You change system variable values or user defined variable values.
If a contract template contains a Provision type clause and this clause is dropped when the template is applied to a document that does not support Provision type clauses.
When you can run Contract Expert on a business document, there are special considerations as to what are considered deviations. See Impact of Contract Expert on Deviation Reports.