Before the demo
Six things to decide before the demo.
01
Ownership
Who owns the contract across legal, procurement and sales.
02
System of record
Which system holds the executed contract and its data.
03
Requirements by theme
Written before any vendor presents.
04
Readiness to adopt
Who has to use it, and whether they are ready.
05
Intake
Where requests start: Salesforce, a form or email.
06
Integration boundaries
What CLM owns, and what Salesforce, the procurement suite and the DMS own.
Each decision defines what good looks like in the demo. Without them, every vendor looks impressive, because a demo is built to.
Readiness and maturity
Readiness and maturity: the two things buyers forget.
Some organizations leave out their readiness; others leave out their process maturity. We assess both before the demo, so the evaluation measures the platform against where you actually are.
Readiness
Whether the organization is ready to adopt: who owns the contract, who has to use the system, where intake lives, and whether templates and contract data are in a state a CLM can use. Some organizations buy before they are ready, and the rollout stalls.
Maturity
Where your contracting process sits today: standard templates, playbooks, an approval matrix and clear escalation paths. A CLM automates the process you have, so a less mature process needs design work before, or alongside, the platform.
What to ask Docusign to show
What to ask Docusign to show, and the gotchas to watch for.
We customize this list to your contracts and business. Run every scenario on your own documents.
| Scenario | What to ask to see | Gotcha to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Your NDA, intake to signature | Generated from your template, routed for approval, signed and filed. | A demo built on the vendor’s sample template, not yours. |
| Third-party paper with a non-standard clause | How rules route it to legal, and how playbooks and redlining work. | AI review shown on clean sample documents rather than your counterparties’ paper. |
| Changing an approval workflow | Your admin making the change live. | Changes that need vendor professional services or a statement of work. |
| Salesforce opportunity to contract | Data populated and status written back. | What is out of the box and what is custom. See Salesforce integration. |
| Your legacy agreements | AI extraction on your own executed contracts. | Accuracy on scanned or older documents, checked against the source. |
| A renewal coming up | Obligation and renewal tracking, and the report legal would use. | Reports that need configuration or exports before they are usable. |
| The IAM boundary | What lives in CLM, and what in Navigator or Maestro. | Features shown that need a different product or edition. See Docusign IAM. |
Send the scenarios and sample documents to Docusign before the demo, so every vendor you evaluate runs the same script.
How to score it
How to score the demo, with price last.
| Criterion | The question to answer |
|---|---|
| Configuration independence | Can your admin change a workflow without a change order? |
| Native AI | Are extraction and clause comparison built in, and accurate on your contracts? |
| Demonstrated adoption | Can Docusign show adoption at comparable legal departments, through references? |
| Integration fit | Does it fit Salesforce, your procurement suite and your DMS as scoped? |
| Total cost | License, implementation, integrations and the renewal cap. See Docusign CLM pricing. |
Guided evaluation
A guided Docusign CLM evaluation.
01
Readiness and maturity
Where your organization and contracting process stand, before any demo.
02
Scorecard
Requirements and the six decisions turned into a scorecard, through the CLM Discovery Sprint or direct scoping.
03
Custom demo script
Scenarios built from your contracts and business, sent to Docusign and any other vendor in advance.
04
Demo and scoring
We attend with you, score each demo, and call out the gotchas.
05
Fit recommendation
What will and will not fit, whether another CLM fits better, and a 6 to 12 week pilot plan if Docusign CLM is the choice.
A guided evaluation typically runs 4 to 8 weeks when requirements are known or one business area, such as sales, legal or procurement, is in scope. Enterprise-wide evaluations across sales, procurement, legal, real estate and commercial contracting take longer.
Who you work with
The practitioners who run the evaluation.
Gary Wheeler
CLM & AI Lead
Has built CLM programs and created legal ops teams for multiple Fortune 500 companies, including Home Depot and Cox. Delivery experience across Docusign CLM and Onit CLM.
Danish Butt
Managing Director
20+ years, including Huron Consulting and Morae Global. Leads legal technology and contracting programs for corporate law departments, from selection through adoption.
Frequently asked questions
How do we get a Docusign CLM demo?
Through Docusign's sales team. Before you book it, write down the scenarios you want to see and gather sample documents, so the demo runs on your contracts instead of a generic script. If you are evaluating more than one CLM, send every vendor the same scenarios.
What should we ask to see in a Docusign CLM demo?
Your own NDA from intake to signature, third-party paper with a non-standard clause, your admin changing an approval workflow live, a Salesforce opportunity becoming a contract, AI extraction on your legacy agreements, renewal tracking and reporting, and where CLM ends and Navigator or Maestro begin. For each, watch for the gotcha: sample templates instead of yours, changes that need professional services, and features that need another product or edition.
Can we test Docusign CLM on our own contracts?
Yes. Ask for a scripted demo that uses your documents. After selection, a pilot of 6 to 12 weeks on one priority contract workflow is the real test, because it runs real contracts through intake, approval and signature.
How do we score a CLM demo?
Against a scorecard written before any vendor presents, on five criteria: configuration independence, native AI, demonstrated adoption, integration fit and total cost, with price considered last.
How long does a guided Docusign CLM evaluation take?
Typically 4 to 8 weeks when requirements are known or one business area, such as sales, legal or procurement, is in scope. Enterprise-wide evaluations across sales, procurement, legal, real estate and commercial contracting take longer, because there are more requirements, stakeholders and systems to cover.
Can a Docusign partner run a fair evaluation?
We disclose the partnership, write the scorecard before any demo, send every vendor the same script, and assess your readiness and maturity independently of any platform. Our CLM practice is vendor-agnostic at selection: if another CLM fits better, we will say so.
Docusign CLM demo coming up? Build the script with a practitioner first.
Book a Discovery Call