Your policy library. Alongside your Word draft.

Contract review often starts in a document. The question is whether its wording gives your organisation the protection it expects. We’re working on a Phoenix toolbar and review pane for Microsoft Word that brings your policy library into that moment.

Status: Word review pilot, in development. The screen above illustrates the workflow we are testing. General availability will follow Microsoft 365 setup and end-to-end validation.

Start with the clause in front of you.

Select a clause in Word and open Phoenix from the ribbon. The review pane is designed to show the contract wording, the chosen policy version and the standard position together. Reviewers should be able to see what differs and why it matters without switching between a draft and a separate playbook.

The example uses a fictional managed IT agreement with a £480,000 total contract value. Its supplier liability cap is £120,000. The selected policy asks for at least 150% of total value, or £720,000. Keeping the amount, calculation and policy source together makes the departure easier to discuss.

Prepare a change, then review it.

The next step is a proposed amendment that addresses the selected departure. The intended workflow lets the reviewer check the wording before inserting it as a tracked change. Accepting a policy exception and accepting a document amendment are decisions for the team reviewing the contract.

We are also bringing the original document and revision history into view, so a reviewer can understand what changed between versions and assess the current wording against the applicable standard.

One policy library, two views of the decision.

At contract level, Phoenix compares the individual terms with the preferred position and any acceptable fallback. Across selected contracts, the same policy provides a consistent basis for comparing departures and identifying agreements that need attention.

A useful ranking must show how much of each agreement has been assessed. Missing evidence stays visible, and a partial assessment is labelled as partial. The aim is to make the reason for a contract’s position in the comparison as clear as the position itself.

What we’re testing next.

• How clearly reviewers can move between a selected clause, its policy requirement and a proposed amendment.
• How tracked changes and saved document versions behave through the Word review workflow.
• How an updated agreement feeds back into its policy comparison and the wider contract ranking.

The Word pilot builds on the policy library and comparison tools in Phoenix. The next stage is to validate that document review workflow with the people who will use it.