Contract Discussions
Contract negotiation generates a lot of back-and-forth: pricing questions, scope changes, clause reviews and sign-off confirmations. PMSuite keeps that conversation inside the product rather than in scattered email chains. Every contract record has its own Discussion tab — a comment stream attached directly to that contract, sitting next to the contract summary, its files and its renewal history.
Who can use it
- Company admins.
- Employees and client contacts whose role grants contract discussion permissions.
Access follows your role and permissions. Contract discussions are governed by four separate permissions in Settings → Roles & Permissions — view, add, edit and delete contract discussion. Each can be set to All or Added by me, so a user may be able to read every comment but edit only their own. If the Contracts module is switched off for your user type in Settings → Module Settings, you will not see the Contracts menu item at all.
Prerequisites
- The Contracts module must be enabled for your user type in Settings → Module Settings.
- A contract must exist. See Creating a Contract.
- Your role needs at least the view permission for contract discussions; posting also needs the add permission.
How to Access
- Go to Contracts at
/account/contracts. - Open the contract you want to discuss.
- Select the Discussion tab.
The contract record also exposes Summary, Files and Contract Renewal History tabs, so the conversation sits alongside the documents and renewal record for the same agreement.
Running a contract conversation
Post a comment
On the Discussion tab, select Add Comment. A rich-text editor opens; write your message and select Submit. The comment appears immediately in the list below, with your name, avatar and a relative timestamp ("2 hours ago"). Comments are listed newest first.
Keep each comment to one topic
The stream is a flat list rather than a set of separate threads, so give each comment a clear opening line that names the point at issue — for example Payment schedule: or Clause 4.2 IP ownership:. That makes the stream readable when a negotiation runs long.
Edit or remove a comment
Each comment carries Edit and Delete actions, shown only when your permission level allows it — either for all comments or for the ones you added yourself. Editing reopens the same rich-text editor; the updated text replaces the original in the list.
Effect on other features
- Contract documents: the discussion holds conversation only. Signed and final documents belong with the contract itself — see Contract Files.
- Signing: agreements reached in the discussion are only binding once the contract is signed. See Contract E-Signatures.
- Renewals: the comment history stays on the contract and is a useful source of context when it comes up for renewal.
- Projects: if the contract has a Project selected, the delivery-side conversation lives in that project's own Discussion tab, which is a separate, richer discussion feature with its own notification event. The two do not share content.
- Google Calendar: contracts are one of the object types that can be pushed to Google Calendar. Sync is one-way, PMSuite → Google Calendar; items created in Google Calendar do not appear in PMSuite, and discussion comments are never synced.
Limitations
- Posting a contract comment does not send a notification. The Discussion Reply event in Settings → Notification Settings covers project discussions, not contract comments. Workaround: tell the other party a comment is waiting through a channel that does notify — a project discussion on the linked project, or the built-in Messages module — and link them to the contract.
- The stream is flat: there are no threads or per-comment replies. Workaround: open each comment with a short label naming the topic, and quote the line you are responding to, so a long negotiation stays readable.
- Comments are text only — you cannot attach a file to a comment. Workaround: upload the marked-up draft on the contract's Files tab and reference the file name in your comment.
- There are no @mentions in contract comments. Workaround: type the person's name in plain text so the record is clear, then notify them separately as above.
- The discussion is not part of the signed contract document. Workaround: once terms are agreed, update the contract's Description or issue a new contract so the agreement is captured in the signed record.
Troubleshooting
- No Discussion tab on the contract — confirm the Contracts module is enabled for your user type in Settings → Module Settings, and that your role has the view contract discussion permission in Settings → Roles & Permissions.
- No Add Comment link — your role lacks the add contract discussion permission. Ask an admin to grant it.
- No Edit or Delete action on a comment — those permissions can be set to Added by me, which hides the actions on other people's comments. An admin can raise the level to All.
- The other party says they never saw the comment — contract comments do not trigger notifications; ping them separately and point them at the contract.
- You cannot find an old comment — the list is newest first on the contract's own Discussion tab, so open the contract itself rather than searching the projects area.