Out-of-the-box, all agreements use the Agreement life cycle template. This life cycle template has three states: Pending Approval, Approved, and Obsolete. To specify a life cycle template other than the Agreement life cycle template, you must update the object initialization rules for the Agreement object type to reflect the alternate template. You can associate any life cycle template with the Agreement object type. Changes to object initialization rules and the life cycle template should be made when you configure and enable agreements for your site. For more information about creating life cycle templates and updating object initialization rules, see Creating a Life Cycle Template and Editing Rules respectively.

To clear authorized participants for the security label values on the authorized objects, the agreement must be active. The life cycle state in which an agreement can be active depends on which life cycle template you chose to apply to the Agreement object. The life cycle state used as the state in which an agreement can be active is the same for all agreements. This state is configured in the AgreementLifecycleState element of the security labels configuration file. In the sample configuration, the Agreement life cycle is used and the life cycle state in which the agreement can be active is Approved. For more information about configuring the active life cycle state, see AgreementConfiguration Element.

The life cycle state of an agreement can only be advanced using the Set State action. If you want the agreement to move automatically to the next state when a particular action has been taken, you must set up a workflow. For more information, see Creating a Workflow Template.