Navigate and Search Contracts

When you manage dozens or hundreds of contracts across different stages, finding the right one should take seconds, not minutes. Scrolling through an unsorted list or relying on memory to recall a contract’s name wastes time and risks missing deadlines.

Pactly’s contract repository gives you several ways to narrow down your contracts: sidebar views for common groupings, filters for targeted searches, full-text keyword search, and customizable columns so you see the information that matters.

When is this useful?

Legal Counsel You need to find the NDA you reviewed two weeks ago for a particular vendor but can only remember the company name. A keyword search across all contract fields surfaces it immediately.

Legal Ops Every Monday you check which contracts are pending approval. Instead of filtering manually each time, a saved view shows them in one click.

Contract Admin A department head asks for a list of all executed service agreements from the last quarter. You combine a status filter, category filter, and date range to generate the list in seconds.

The Contract Repository

The contract repository is the main screen in Pactly. It displays your contracts in a sortable table with the sidebar on the left for switching between views.

Contract repository showing the sidebar with views on the left, the search bar and filter/columns controls at the top, and the contract table in the center — The contract repository. The sidebar (left) lists your views, the toolbar (top) has search, filter, and column controls, and the table shows matching contracts.

By default, the repository shows active contracts only. Archived and aborted contracts are hidden from the default view. When you apply any filter or search keyword, archived and aborted contracts are included in the results automatically, so you do not miss anything.

Views are saved ways to look at your contracts. Each view remembers its filters and column configuration, so switching between them is instant.

Built-in Views

Pactly provides several built-in views:

View	What it shows
Action Required	Contracts flagged for your attention (new emails, messages, or assignments). See Action Required.
My Active Inbox	Contracts assigned to you that are still in progress
Unassigned Contracts	Contracts not yet assigned to an owner
Executed Contracts	All fully signed contracts
Auto-renewed Contracts	Contracts flagged as auto-renewed
All Contracts	Every contract you have access to, regardless of status or assignment

Click any view name in the sidebar to switch. The table updates immediately.

Custom Views

You can create your own views with saved filter and column combinations. Custom views appear in the sidebar below the built-in views and can be reordered by dragging.

For example, a view called “APAC NDAs Pending Approval” could combine a category filter (NDA), a status filter (Pending Approval), and a property filter (Region: APAC) with columns showing contract value and expiry date.

See Custom Views for the full guide on creating, editing, and managing views.

Filtering Contracts

Click the Filter button above the contract table to open the filter panel. Filters narrow down which contracts appear. You can combine multiple filters, and each additional filter narrows the results further.

Filter panel expanded showing filter categories (Owner, Template, Playbook, Status, Type, Group, Date, Property, Party, Bulk Reference, Action Required) with the Status filter expanded showing checkboxes for Draft, In Negotiation, Pending Approval, Pending Signature, Executed, Terminated, Archived, Aborted, and Marked for Abort — The filter panel with the Status filter expanded. Select one or more statuses to narrow the contract list. Multiple filters can be combined.

Available Filters

Filter	What it does
Status	Show contracts in specific statuses (Draft, In Negotiation, Pending Approval, etc.). Includes pseudo-statuses: Archived, Aborted, and Marked for Abort.
Category	Filter by contract category (NDA, Service Agreement, etc.)
Owner	Contracts assigned to a specific person, plus an “Unassigned” option
Template	Contracts generated from a specific template
Playbook	Contracts reviewed against a specific playbook
Group	Contracts assigned to a specific group. You only see groups you have access to.
Date	Filter by creation date range
Property	Filter by any custom contract property value, including date-type properties with ranges
Party	Filter by party attributes: company name, email, phone
Bulk Reference	Paste multiple reference numbers (comma or line-break separated) to find specific contracts
Action Required	Toggle to show only contracts flagged for your attention

Filter Behavior

When no filters are active, archived and aborted contracts are hidden by default. As soon as you apply any filter (including a keyword search), they are included in the results. This prevents contracts from being invisible when you are actively searching.

Full-Text Search

The search bar at the top of the repository lets you find contracts by keyword. Type a term and press Enter. Pactly searches across:

Contract name
Contract reference number
Text-based contract property values (text, multi-line, and multi-option types)
Party names and emails (both entity names and individual contacts)
Requester name and email (including external form submitters)
Form values from intake submissions

The search is case-insensitive and matches partial words. Results update to show matching contracts across all types you have access to.

Sorting

The repository supports sorting by creation date (newer or older first) and by any date-type contract property that has been enabled for sorting by your administrator. Click the Sort by dropdown above the table to change the sort order.

For example, if your organization has an “Expiry Date” property enabled for sorting, you can sort contracts by upcoming expiry to prioritize renewals.

Customizing Columns

Click the Columns button next to the Filter button to choose which columns appear in the table.

Edit Columns dialog showing Available columns on the left (Attributes tab with Reference, Contract Type, Last Round, Requester; and a Properties tab) and Selected columns on the right (Name, Status, Date, Source, Owner, Auto-renew, Governing Law, Dispute Resolution, Expiration Date) — The Edit Columns dialog. Available columns are listed on the left with Attributes and Properties tabs. Selected columns on the right can be reordered or removed. Click 'Back to Defaults' to reset.

Default Columns

The repository starts with these columns: Name, Status, Date, Source, and Owner. Name, Status, and Date are required and cannot be removed.

Adding Columns

You can add any of these as additional columns:

Reference (contract reference number)
Requester (who submitted the contract)
Contract Type (category)
Last Round (most recent negotiation round)
Any contract property your organization has defined

Contract properties are organized by their property groups, making it easy to find the right field. A search box lets you filter available properties by name.

Saving Column Configurations

Column selections are saved per view. Different views can show different column sets, so your “Financial Contracts” view might show Contract Value and Payment Terms columns while your “NDA Review” view shows Governing Law and Liability Cap.

Tips

Start with a view, then refine with search. Click a sidebar view to narrow the scope, then use the search bar within that view to find a specific contract.
Create views for recurring needs. If you check “contracts pending my approval” every morning, save it as a custom view instead of re-applying filters each time. See Custom Views.
Use property filters for targeted lists. If your organization tracks Contract Value, Department, or Region as properties, these become filter criteria, giving you precise control over what appears in the table.
Use bulk reference lookup for audit requests. When someone sends you a list of contract reference numbers, paste them all into the Bulk Reference filter to pull them up instantly.