Our goal was to create a seamless, all-in-one solution that makes managing agreements effortless and intuitive.

Understanding the status of an agreement at every stage is crucial for maintaining workflow efficiency. However, SharePoint’s previous approach relied on a patchwork of features, resulting in a fragmented and cumbersome experience. SharePoint Premium Agreements (SPPA) redefines this process, and offers millions of professionals an intuitive, end-to-end solution to effortlessly manage agreements with precision and ease.

CORE PRINCIPLES?

1- “Design should….”

2-

3-

“CREATING AND PROPOSING A NORTHSTAR AS A GUIDE….”based on business planning, needs and goals.

“talk about how we used the northstar as guidance, utilizing feeedback and customer call etc..” CELA, Globalblackbelt

QUICK OVERVIEW OF DESIGN PROCESS...

• User research

• Informed decisions

• wireframe

• internal testing with CELA

• engineering

Difficulties and hurdles?

• Team dynamic

• Clear definition of product?

• Internal conflict?

• Ramping up disciplines

BREAKDOWN OF WHAT THE APP ENTAILS…

• HOME PAGE

• AGREEMENTS PAGE

• PREVIEW WINDOW

• etc…

How should I break up these sections? I should title each section based on user need and feedback. For example, don’t call Home section home.

• Show Home/Agreements as main Dashboard or “Agreements hub in one”

• Review flow could be called “Automation and ease”.

HOME FOR AGREEMENTS AND FUNDAMENTAL PURPOSE

PURPOSE OF AGREEMENTS PAGE, preview window etc

WHATS NEXT? what now, is the product moving along?

(ABOUT SECTION) A new initiative by Microsoft to provide an integrated, AI-driven solution for managing agreements within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. While Microsoft has long provided tools for document management and workflows (like SharePoint, Power Automate, and Microsoft 365 apps), SharePoint Premium Agreements marks the first dedicated, AI-powered agreement lifecycle management solution from Microsoft. First Fully Integrated Agreement Lifecycle Solution – While organizations previously used a mix of SharePoint, Power Automate, and third-party e-signature tools, this is Microsoft’s first end-to-end agreement lifecycle tool.

previously offered document management and collaboration tools through SharePoint, this app specifically focuses on automating and streamlining the entire lifecycle of agreements, from creation to execution.The Agreements app was announced as part of Microsoft's broader SharePoint Premium platform, which was introduced to enhance content management with advanced AI capabilities. The platform aims to boost productivity, automate workflows at scale, and prepare content for AI applications like Microsoft Copilot.

How This Is Different from Past Microsoft Offerings:

• First Fully Integrated Agreement Lifecycle Solution – While organizations previously used a mix of SharePoint, Power Automate, and third-party e-signature tools, this is Microsoft’s first end-to-end agreement lifecycle tool.

• AI-Powered Contract Management – Microsoft Syntex adds AI capabilities that extract key contract terms, track renewals, and classify agreements automatically.

• Deep Microsoft 365 Integration – Unlike third-party contract management tools, this solution natively integrates with Teams, Outlook, and Word, allowing users to manage agreements within their daily workflow.

Previous Microsoft Solutions Used for Agreements (Before SharePoint Premium Agreements):

• SharePoint Document Libraries – Used for storing agreements but lacked AI-driven insights.

• Power Automate – Helped automate approval workflows but required custom configurations.

• Microsoft Purview Compliance Manager – Managed regulatory compliance but didn’t focus specifically on agreements.

• Third-Party E-Signature Integrations (Adobe Sign, DocuSign) – Provided execution but lacked pre- and post-signing lifecycle management.

Why This Matters

This marks a strategic shift—Microsoft is competing with contract lifecycle management (CLM) providers like Ironclad, Icertis, and DocuSign CLM by offering a native Microsoft solution that reduces reliance on third-party software.

(REWORD needed) As the design lead, I conceived the vision for the app and galvanized stakeholders and partner teams to support my proposal. In fall 2024, I was entrusted to execute on the vision, with a primary focus on shipping to MVP for beta testing with enterprise customers. Additionally, I forged strong partnerships across disciplines and the Office organizations, enabling us to deliver a cohesive and collaborative product that met the highest design and engineering standards.

(PROBLEM or GOAL)

Increase the number of Syntex licenses that are purchased

Metadata search is aimed at helping people find documents based on metadata.  When you have a large library of similar documents, this is much more powerful than the keyword search which exists in the search box today and only looks for matches with no context.  You can imagine that “total”=”$25” is a much more specific search than a keyword search that looks for the word “total” and the number “25” anywhere in a document.  You can also make complex queries which look for multiple aspects like “total” = “$25” AND “status” = “approved” or “pending”.  You would not be able to do this with the keyword search that exists today. 

Role / Lead UX Designer

Syntex add-on

How it works with AI models

Document libraries house thousands of documents, each file have column representations which signify metadata. AI models are run to extract content information and display them as metadata in the library, search can be run utilizing that extracted data

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Opportunity and motivation

Many customers refused to rely on search and instead organize folders and browse, which they admit is not their preferred solution. For those that do search, they have to review pages and pages of results and can only rely on metadata filters, if they exist, to get to the information they seek. In the midst of manual discovery, content query pushes to exponentially decrease time to success and increase the value of search for customers. By providing a full circle search experience along side AI models, users can find what need quickly and efficiently.

Before

Research intake & competitive analysis

An advanced search experience is nothing new f / Research helped create a realistic approach for our feature in short term and long term. Also identified technical constraints and challenges early on. Helped us vision and plan a north star, realistic MVP and planning for the next year. Identify growth opportunities and constant conversations with customers.

Collaboration with Microsoft search team all up, alignment with different M365 product areas

Work with internal group of customers

Key findings and principles

• Not a query builder

• Scalable and systematic

• Growth opportunity

User scenarios

Customer conversations and understanding

Design principles

Design iterations

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Solution

Provide customers with a set of default parameters they can begin their search with. Starting with keyword search, provide the top 5 query criteria. If a model is running on this library, provide an affordance to add extracted metadata options to search by as well.