Configurability in SaaS for an Electronic Contract Management Application

In the last few years Software as a Service (SaaS) has been accepted as a core concept. SaaS is a software delivery paradigm where the software is hosted off-premise and delivered via web to a large number of tenants and the mode of payment follows a subscription model. Configurability allows the single instance multiple tenant model which leads to many benefits both for the customers and the vendors which in turn has led to the acceptance and popularity of SaaS. Configurability in SaaS software aims to provide tenants/customers with a multitude of options and variations using a single code base, such that it is possible for each tenant to have a unique software configuration. Few advanced commercial electronic contract management applications use a single code base with configuration options to support multitenants Software as a Service (SaaS) has emerged making expensive business applications more affordable for small and medium businesses (SMB) and very small businesses (SVB) for multi-tenancy. The paper aims to provide information on the nature of configurability in SaaS software, how it can be provided and the technologies needed to support it. We also describe several novel methods used in the metadata, security and shared services, as well as customization and tenant extensions modules to support multi-tenancy SaaS in this application. This new multi-tenancy SaaS model can reduce the application hosting cost and make the application more affordable to the tenants because of its capabilities in customization and scalability while continuing to support an increasing number of tenants (ASP) or vendor to customize its existing electronic contract management application for them if necessary.