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   1  @title Legalpad User Guide
   2  @group userguide
   3  
   4  Using Legalpad to track agreements and signatures on legal documents.
   5  
   6  = Overview =
   7  
   8  Legalpad is a simple application for tracking signatures on legal agreements.
   9  You can add legal documents, users can sign them, and you can keep track of who
  10  has signed what.
  11  
  12  Right now, it is primarily useful for open source projects that have a
  13  Contributor License Agreement or a similar document which needs to be signed
  14  before changes can be accepted from contributors. In particular, it has
  15  integrations into Differential which can block changes from being accepted until
  16  the author has signed the required documents.
  17  
  18  NOTE: Legalpad is a basic application, and missing many of the features of more
  19  general document signing software. It may be useful to help you do things
  20  beyond track CLAs, but you should evaluate its capabilities carefully.
  21  
  22  Requiring a CLA
  23  ===============
  24  
  25  Open source projects often require contributors to sign a license agreement
  26  before their contributions can be accepted to the project. To require a CLA or
  27  similar document for an open source project:
  28  
  29    - Create a CLA document in Legalpad.
  30    - Create a "Global" Herald rule which triggers "Always".
  31    - The rule should take the action "Require legal signatures", specifying
  32      your CLA document as the required document.
  33  
  34  After you've done this, all new reviews created in Differential by authors who
  35  have not signed the document will trigger a signature requirement. These reviews
  36  can not be accepted until the document has been signed.
  37  
  38  If the author has already signed all of the required documents, Herald will not
  39  take any actions. This reduces the amount of noise the CLA process generates for
  40  regular contributors.
  41  
  42  You can require more than one document (to require that they all be signed), if
  43  you have several agreements that contributors must sign.
  44  
  45  Alternatively, if you have several different sets of agreements for different
  46  projects, you can also choose a more narrow Herald condition than "Always" (for
  47  example, require a signature only if the revision is against certain
  48  repositories).
  49  
  50  Document-Based Policies
  51  =======================
  52  
  53  If you have a document like an NDA, you can write a policy rule which prevents
  54  users from seeing content until they sign the document:
  55  
  56    - In any policy control ("Visible To", "Editable By"), choose "Custom Policy".
  57    - Add a rule like "Allow signers of legalpad documents: X".
  58    - Leave the default rule as "Deny all other users".
  59    - Save the policy.
  60  
  61  Users will now only be able to take the action (for example, view or edit the
  62  object) if they have signed the specified documents.
  63  
  64  
  65  Adding Exemptions
  66  =================
  67  
  68  If you have users who have signed an alternate form of a document (for example,
  69  you have a hard copy on file), or an equivalent document, or who are otherwise
  70  exempt from needing to sign a document in Legalpad, you can add a signature
  71  exemption for them.
  72  
  73  Other applications will treat users with a signature exemption as though they
  74  had signed the document, although the UI will show the signature as an exemption
  75  rather than a normal signature.
  76  
  77  To add an exemption, go to **Manage Document**, then **View Signatures**, then
  78  **Add Signature Exemption**.
  79  
  80  You can optionally add notes about why a user is exempt from signing a document.
  81  To review the notes later (and see who added the exemption), click the colored
  82  asterisk in the list view.
  83  
  84  
  85  Roadmap
  86  ========
  87  
  88  You can find discussion about the Legalpad roadmap here:
  89  
  90  https://secure.phabricator.com/T5505
  91  
  92  If there are features you'd like to see, let us know.