Why you should consider updating to Contract Manager V13.

Oracle Contract Management version 13 introduces new features out of the box that will help both users and administrators.

As mentioned on Oracle's release value proposition for CM v13, some of the new functionality and enhancements are within the following areas

• LDAP
  
• Content Repository
  
• Web Services
  
• Version control
  
• User Interface
  
• Configuration Utility
  

I will briefly describe some of them below as per Oracle's document.

LDAP

This functionality will allow administrators to connect to LDAP Servers and import or update users and their attributes into Contract Manager.
In my opinion this is a great new feature and long due in the software. It will reduce the administrative time managing users and also reducing the amount of username and passwords that a user has to maintain.

Content Repository

Contract Manager V13 now offers two different ways to store documents: the original way which is selecting a location on the file server and the new feature that will give you the ability to connect to a content repository like

• Jackrabbit
  
• Microsoft SharePoint
  
• Oracle Universal Content Management
  

Connecting to existing document repositories have a few advantages, like more secured access, the ability to search for documents using the repository tools and the ability to leverage and integrate those repositories with Contract Manager. The question is whether Contract Manager will also allow interfacing with other Content Management systems like EMC Documentum or Columbiasoft Document Locator trough native APIs.

Version Control

Version 13 will offer the ability to automatically version documents upon each save or on demand from the menus. This feature will give us the ability to store snapshots of the document's history providing an audit trail over the life of the document.

Web Services

Web Services have not been introduced as of yet, may be with the release of Service Pack 1. This feature should extend the data exchange between different applications like your Estimating or Accounting Systems, and also be able to automatically input data into Contract Manager. This feature will introduce a new series of integration possibilities.

That said, if you planning to upgrade, and Contract manger is part of an ecosystem of integrated applications, you have to do your due diligence. I have been looking all over the Web and I haven't been able to find out any Architectural document of the new release, to see if they were any changes on the DB schema or in the APIs.