We are very happy to share that we are finalising the training materials for our project for the International Trade Centre (ITC, a joint agency of the U.N. and WTO). After completing a Cross-border contracting training programme, I was commissioned to add a chapter on intellectual property rights and draft three model contracts (an MOU, an NDA and a Trademark Licence). Apart from correction rounds, language review and translation work, our preparatory work for the ITC is now done!
But there is more to share about Weagree:
Weagree Wizard – new release
Two weeks ago, we released a software update of the Weagree Wizard. It marked the end of a development programme that started a year ago. Of all of last year’s updates, this one brought about the greatest performance and user-experience improvement. Contracts of up to 100 pages will be ‘questionnaired’ at a speed almost equal to that of a simple NDA. It makes us curious as to the current limits: will performance decrease with a contract of over 200 pages? Or with 350-plus pages?
We had planned this release for mid September, but our software engineers seem to be over-delivering – not unusually – which is putting us ahead of schedule. So the anticipated time of our roadmap-to-go is looking very promising.
Milestones of the past 12 months
Milestones achieved include:
- Significant performance improvements (Q&A speed)
- Enhanced user’s sense of being ‘in control’
- Improved underwater screen
- Improved clause library
- Multi-browser compatibility (also for iPhone and iPad)
- Strengthened workflow and approval functionalities
- An e-mail workflow alerting system
- Centralised ‘contract house style’ management
- Multi-language support (incl. Russian, Chinese and Hindi)
- Improved software release testing protocols
Our roll-out to 10,000+ users at our long-standing launching customer, ASML, (replacing their global NDA tool) confirmed that the Weagree Wizard is highly user-friendly: user-training is not needed. The implementation was realised without complications, but for the improvement of a few approver functionalities.
What’s next?
The update brings the Weagree Wizard to the next level. From here, we will expand the Q&A-capabilities relatively easily. We are planning to connect to contract lifecycle management and DMS solutions, and will introduce new, advanced Q&A-options (without compromising on user-friendliness).
Concerning product development, our focus will shift from the user-experience towards a dramatic simplification of the administrator function. (As if it is not already extraordinarily simple!) As yet, approximately six hours of initial training followed by some ten to fifteen hours of template coach is required. Whilst the six hours of training will probably remain the same, we anticipate that inserting a contract template will become much more intuitive, and open to less tech-savvy lawyers.
Weagree is growing
From now on, our first priority will be Weagree’s operational support. We are working hard at bringing Weagree to the next level: we have been formalising all our internal processes, we’re further improving the administrator support function, we’re discussing strategic partnerships, and we will intensify our communications and sales efforts. More about this in the next newsletter. Contact me if you would like to hear more about the details of our plans.
