Could Jira Service Desk automate agreements/contracts?

[Jason Freeman]

We are currently using Jira Service Desk as our IT service desk.

However, another department would like to use JSD to automate their agreements/contracts, which are currently paper forms.  In this case, an agreement is basically a paper form that is something like this:

John Doe hereby agrees to do ABC and XYZ.  Etc. etc.

Signed, John Doe

The agreement could be 3 or 4 pages in length, full of paragraphs and narrative.

Some issues that I could foresee:

• Where would I put the agreement verbiage?  As far as I can see, JSD only has input controls (like textboxes and checkboxes).  I guess I could make it automatically attach a document, but that would quickly fill the system up with generic documents.
• If the verbiage of the agreement changed, how would I know which version of the agreement that a user agreed to?  For example, if a user agreed to something 5 years ago but the verbiage changed 20 times since then, which one of those did the user agree to?
• In any case, is there a way to ensure that the agents are not making changes to the agreements?  I don't suspect this would be a problem, but you never know.

[Hernan Halabi - Elite IT Consulting Group]

Might not be the best tool, but yes.

The way I see it...

Agents add all the info in the description field.

On the next status they add the guy who needs to sign as approvers. That gives you flexibility for he back and forth.

You could allow to edit the field only on transitions and each one requires a new approval.

You will always have the history tab to audit what happened if needed.

[Jack Brickey]

agree you could likely put something together that would facilitate the process but I would not use it for the legal/signoff process.

[Jason Freeman]

In this instance, the agents don't initiate it.  The end user ("customer") initiates it.  The agents only see it at the end (once all the approvals have been obtained).

If the user initiates it, how would the verbiage get into the description field?  Is there a way to make it where the agents cannot edit the description field?

[Jason Freeman]

Also: are you aware of any add-ons that might help with this?

[Hernan Halabi - Elite IT Consulting Group]

No one that comes to mind at this point, the one that knew isn't supported for JSD.

What I don't get is how the process works. Why a customer would create a ticket to agree terms? Sounds a better option to have the standard agreement somewhere online, maybe a Google form, and as they submit it, create a ticket via rest with that information on it.

[Jason Freeman]

That's a good question.

Basically, it's the user agreeing to something and a process that kicks off at the end by the agent.

So, the reason the user is agreeing to something is so that the user can get something.  But it's all in one thing.  If the user doesn't agree to the terms, then the user cannot receive service at the end.

We've actually done something similar in IT, but our agreement portion is extremely short, and we really don't care if something in the narrative changes over time.  For this use case, though, it's a little more important.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is a "legal agreement," but it just needs to be documented.

[Jason Freeman]

Related question: are there any add-ons that would create a "document" once a ticket has been fully approved so that the details could be locked in time within a PDF?

[Hernan Halabi - Elite IT Consulting Group]

Based on your input I would keep with the plan to create the ticket via rest and have some front end to show the the customer rather than take them to Jira to sign. 

You can do kind of a mix of my original proposal. Instead the agent providing the document, it gets created from this front-end I mention. If changes come in the future you apply the approval process I mentioned and keep all the history in there.

About the add-ons question, I would keep everything within Jira, you can always search for it later and if you ever need it on pdf you can export the ticket directly within it.

[Jason Freeman]

If we get approvals via a Google Form, I'm not sure what the point of using Jira is at all?  At that point, we could just as easily just email the agents and stay away from Jira.  We're trying to use only Jira instead of a complicated half-and-half solution.

[Hernan Halabi - Elite IT Consulting Group]

I'll agree on that, as I mentioned on my first answer, technically yes you can do this, but it's not the best tool for it. Even though you can customize it to make it work, it's too complicated and not very worth it to do all this setup to get that sign off.