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How AeroSpark works, and how to do things in it.

AeroSpark is a contract-review platform that lives where your team already works — Slack, Microsoft Teams, and the web. People submit contracts (NDAs, MSAs, SOWs, DPAs, vendor/consulting/partnership agreements); AI reads each document and extracts its key terms; a policy engine assigns a risk verdict; and for contracts still in negotiation, an AI redline engine marks up the document with tracked changes. Reviewers approve, reject, or negotiate from the same place they got the notification. Everything AeroSpark touches lands in a searchable contract register you can ask questions about in plain English.

A few things that are always true:

Start here — your first hour

The shortest path from installing AeroSpark to reviewing a real contract. Everything below is reversible, and you can change any of it later.

  1. Make sure someone can review. Whoever installs AeroSpark becomes an admin automatically. Reviewers need the Legal role to see review buttons, so if anyone other than you will be deciding contracts, assign it now. This is the only genuinely required step — everything else has a sensible default. Where: Slack — admin menu → Manage Legal Roles. Teams — admin menu → Manage Roles. Web — Admin → Roles & Permissions.
  2. Tell AeroSpark your standard terms. This is what separates a generic AI opinion from a review that reflects your positions. Either fill in the policy settings directly (governing law, maximum term, liability, and so on), or upload a written negotiation playbook and let AeroSpark turn it into a policy you can then edit. If you have a standard NDA, upload it as a template too — AeroSpark will read your own paper and seed the policy from it. Where: the Setup Wizard covers this, or go direct — Slack/Teams admin menu → Review Policies, and Templates for your standard NDA. Web — Admin → Policy and Admin → Document Templates.
  3. Choose where review cards go (optional). Designate a review channel and cards post there. Skip it and reviewers get a DM plus a review queue in the app home. Both work. Where: Slack — admin menu → Set Review Channel. Teams — admin menu → Legal channel. Web — Admin → Channel Configuration.
  4. Submit a real contract. Not a test file — use something you would actually review. You will see the extracted terms, a green/yellow/red verdict measured against the policy you just set, and, for a negotiation draft in DOCX, a marked-up copy with tracked changes. Where: the submit command in Slack, or message the bot in Teams — both are in the command list below. On the web, Submit from the dashboard.
  5. Load a handful of signed contracts, then ask them questions. Take ten or twenty agreements you have already signed — a folder of NDAs, your vendor paper, whatever is nearest — and import them. You can upload the files directly, or point AeroSpark at a Google Drive or SharePoint folder. They are read and filed into the register with their terms extracted. Then use the Ask box: "which of these auto-renew?", "where did we agree to unlimited liability?", "what expires in the next 90 days?" This is the step that shows you what the product is actually for — the review workflow is the day-to-day, but having answers about your whole portfolio is the part people do not expect. Where: web only — Import in the dashboard to upload, then the Contracts view for the register and its Ask box.
  6. Connect storage and signature when you need them (optional). Google Drive or SharePoint so approved documents land in your own folders; DocuSign so you can send for signature straight from the review card. Where: Slack/Teams admin menu → Google Drive, SharePoint or DocuSign. Web — Admin → Integrations. The Setup Wizard covers these too.

If you only do two things: steps A and B. Then submit three contracts you have already reviewed by hand and compare AeroSpark's verdicts against your own. That tells you far more about whether your policy is set correctly than any amount of further configuration.

1. Getting a contract in

You can submit a contract several ways; they all feed the same pipeline.

You don't pick the document type — a classifier detects it (NDA, MSA, SOW, DPA, etc.) and applies the right rules. Password-protected PDFs and exact duplicates are rejected with an explanation. After you submit, you get a confirmation, and the review surface (a card or your review queue) updates as the AI works.

Counterparty redlines: there's no separate command for a marked-up draft — just submit it the normal way. AeroSpark automatically detects the tracked changes, reads what changed, runs policy against the proposed edits, and routes it to legal review.

2. What happens after you submit

  1. Reading it. A background worker runs AI extraction and pulls out the document's key terms (term length, liability cap, governing law, payment terms, etc. — the set depends on the contract type). This is just reading facts, not judging risk.
  2. Assessing risk. A policy engine compares the terms against your team's standards and produces a risk verdict — green (clean), yellow (a soft concern), or red (a hard problem) — plus the specific issues.
  3. Marking it up (negotiation documents). For a contract that's in negotiation, the AI redline engine marks up only the clauses that need changing with native Word tracked changes (authored as "AeroSpark AI"), preserving the rest of the document. Reviewers get a "Download redlined draft" option. The redline reviews the document against your team's negotiation playbook (if one is configured) and general legal judgment.
  4. Notifying reviewers. The contract shows up for review — as a card in your legal channel, as reviewer DMs + the App Home queue, or on the web dashboard.

How long it takes. The AI steps (reading + risk) are quick — usually well under a minute, a little longer for large or scanned documents. After that it's waiting on a human reviewer, so there's no fixed turnaround — every contract goes to a person, and the timing depends on your team. You'll get a DM the moment a decision is made, and you can check status anytime. (There's no automatic approval, so nothing is decided without a human.)

Already-signed contracts (imported, or a signed copy that arrives) skip the redline step — you can't redline a signed document — and are filed into the register with any concerns flagged on the entry.

3. Reviewing & deciding (for reviewers)

Reviewers (Legal/Admin, plus Finance/Sales on deal exceptions) act from a triage card (Slack/Teams) or the web viewer.

The contract is…UseWhat it means
done — agreed, as submittedApprove as submittedThe submitted version is the final one — approve it unchanged, nothing to upload.
done — agreed, but the final differsApprove with changesYou attach the clean agreed-final document.
not done — counterparty's turnPrepare for ReturnPrepares the counterparty's copy of the redlined version to go back to them. You choose what to send — the prepared copy, any file from this contract's own Google Drive / SharePoint folder (you browse the folder and pick, so a copy you edited in the cloud is one click away), or your own upload — and whether it goes to the requester to forward or just downloads for you.
a noRejectCloses it as rejected (add a note).

Approve vs. Approve with changes are the same decision — they differ only in which document is final: the original submission, or a revised copy you attach. If the counterparty's returned version is already clean and acceptable, choose Approve as submitted (no upload needed). Use Approve with changes when you hold a cleaned-up final that differs from what was submitted.

The "clean final" rule: when you Approve with changes, the attached file must be the clean, executed-ready version — all agreed tracked changes accepted (so it's plain text now) and highlights removed. AeroSpark blocks a file that still has tracked changes or highlights, because that's a work-in-progress draft, not something you'd sign. (Prepare for Return is the opposite — it keeps the redlines, since the counterparty needs to see them.)

Finding the right document. The card and the web viewer both list this contract's documents individually, each with its own links — your original, your redlined draft (the internal copy), the counterparty copy (the one you forward), a clean revised version, and the signed copy once it exists — plus any copies already sent to the counterparty, dated, so you can tell exactly which file went out and when. Where a cloud folder is connected, each document's Open in Drive / Open in SharePoint link opens that document, not a generic folder link.

Any reviewer can escalate a single contract to another person (who can then act on just that one), up to 2 escalations.

4. Signing & execution

Approving is sign-off, not signing. "Approved" means "this is the version to sign" — getting it actually signed is a separate step:

The counterparty's agreed final, coming back to sign. After you approve, the counterparty often sends back the final for signature. When you submit it, AeroSpark checks it against exactly what you approved: if it matches, it's marked ready to sign — no second review, just send it (you'll see a "final received · verified" note); if anything changed, AeroSpark flags precisely what changed so a reviewer can check it before signing. (This is why Approve as submitted matters: approving the counterparty's own document unchanged makes their document the thing the returning final is checked against.)

When a contract is executed, AeroSpark re-reads the signed copy so the register reflects the final signed terms, and pushes the signed file to Google Drive / SharePoint if connected.

5. Versions & negotiation rounds

A contract often goes back and forth. When the counterparty returns your paper, AeroSpark links it as a new version of the original (automatically when it recognizes the document, or by asking you which contract it belongs to). Linking unlocks a version-to-version diff, remembers concessions already made across rounds (so you're not re-fighting settled points), and gives the redline engine the prior version to compare against.

To register a contract you sent outside AeroSpark (so its redlined return is recognized): use Track Outbound (from the contracts menu) and upload the version you sent. AeroSpark marks that copy invisibly so it can recognize the reply, then hands the marked copy back to you with a "Forward this copy" link — send that file to the counterparty. If you'd already emailed your own copy, re-send this one instead, otherwise their reply may not link up automatically.

6. The contract register & the Ask box

Every contract — submitted, negotiated, executed, or bulk-imported — lands in the contract register (the Contracts view; Legal/Admin only). You can filter by status, type, counterparty, and date, and export to CSV.

The register also has an Ask box — type a plain-English question about your portfolio ("which MSAs have unlimited liability?", "what's renewing in the next 90 days?", "where are we exposed?") and get a cited answer drawn from your contracts' extracted terms and flagged concerns. It answers from contract data (terms + concerns), not the full document text, so it's for term/field/concern questions across the portfolio rather than quoting a specific clause.

> Note: that register Ask box answers questions about your contracts' data. This assistant (the one you're talking to) answers questions about how AeroSpark works and how to do things.

7. Generating an NDA

If your admin uploaded an NDA template, you can generate a ready-to-send NDA from the submit flow (your platform's Generate-NDA option) — fill in counterparty, dates, term, governing law, and AeroSpark produces the document. If the counterparty later edits and returns it, AeroSpark recognizes it as your paper and catches any changes.

8. Deal exceptions (a separate flow)

A deal exception is different from a contract review — it's a request to deviate from standard deal terms (extra discount, longer payment, a liability-cap change). Start one with the deal-exception command for your platform (see the command list below). The form is routed to Finance, Sales Management, and/or Legal for sign-off, each on their own "leg." A first rejection cancels the rest, and you get a DM with the outcome.

Deal exceptions live entirely in Slack and Teams — you raise and approve them there. They are not contract documents, so they don't appear in the contract register or on the web dashboard; the web side is for contracts.

9. Roles & who can do what

If you can't see review/approval buttons, you likely need the Legal (or Finance/Sales) role — ask your workspace admin. The first person in a workspace becomes admin automatically.

10. Setting up AeroSpark (admins)

Setup is admin-only. There's a guided Setup Wizard that walks you through the main steps, or you can configure each piece individually from the admin menu (the exact command to open it is in the platform command list below). The setup items:

Everything except having someone who can review (a Legal or Admin user) is optional, and you can do it any time, in any order. If an admin asks what's left to configure, the assistant can see which items are still outstanding and name them.

11. Plans & billing

AeroSpark meters document submissions against a monthly quota by plan (Free / Starter / Pro / Enterprise). Higher plans unlock DocuSign, AI redlining, and PDF→DOCX conversion, and raise the monthly limit. Admins manage the plan; you'll get a heads-up as you approach your limit.

12. Common questions

"Why wasn't my contract approved automatically?" AeroSpark doesn't auto-approve anything — every contract goes to a human reviewer. A green/low-risk verdict just means the review is quick. You'll get a DM when a decision is made.

"What file types can I submit?" PDF and DOCX (legacy .doc is converted automatically). DOCX contracts in negotiation also get AI-suggested redlines; a scanned PDF is converted to an editable, redline-friendly document first.

"I submitted a redlined/marked-up draft — is there a special command?" No — just use the normal submit command. AeroSpark detects the tracked changes automatically and routes it to legal.

"Where do I see my submissions?" Use your platform's status command or the App Home tab to see your own submissions; reviewers and admins can see the whole register in the Contracts view.

"What's the difference between Approve and Approve with changes?" Same decision — Approve means the submitted version is final; Approve with changes means you're attaching a different, agreed-final document. Use the latter only when the final differs from what was submitted.

"Is the contract signed once I approve it?" No — approving says "this is the version to sign." Sending it for signature (DocuSign) or uploading a signed copy is what marks it executed.

"I approved a contract — do I have to re-review the final the counterparty sends back to sign?" No. When you submit the counterparty's returning final, AeroSpark checks it against the version you approved. If it's the same, it's marked ready to sign — no re-review. If they changed something, it flags exactly what changed so you can check it first.

"My upload was rejected, or something failed — what do I do?" A few cases to know: a password-protected PDF is rejected — remove the protection and resubmit. An exact duplicate of something already submitted is flagged, with an option to submit it as a re-review instead. If AI extraction fails (rare), the contract is routed to a human for manual review and you get a DM — nothing is lost. Supported files are PDF and DOCX (older .doc is converted automatically); convert anything else first.

13. When something doesn't look right

"The marked-up document has fewer tracked changes than the card lists concerns." Redlines are applied only where the exact clause text can be located in the document. A clause inside a table, a text box, or unusual formatting may be raised as a concern without a tracked change attached to it. The concerns on the card are always the complete picture — the marked-up copy is a best-effort application of them, not a replacement for reading them.

"I approved a contract but it never appeared in Google Drive or SharePoint." The push to your storage happens after approval and is deliberately non-blocking: the approval succeeds even if storage is unreachable, so a connection problem can never lose you a decision. The usual causes are an expired connection or a target folder that was renamed or deleted. Reconnect from the admin menu and subsequent pushes will work. The document is never lost — it is always downloadable from the contract record.

"The bot has stopped responding." Almost always the app was removed and re-added, or the workspace authorization was revoked. Reinstalling restores it. Your data is unaffected: contracts, decisions and history belong to the workspace, not to the connection.

"I can't assign a role to someone." The person has to already exist in your Microsoft tenant or Slack workspace under the exact address you are using. A typo, a personal email address, or a guest who has not yet accepted their invitation will all fail.

"A PDF came back reviewed but with no marked-up copy." PDFs are converted to an editable document before they can be redlined. If that conversion fails, the review still happens — you get the extracted terms, the risk verdict and the concerns — but there is no tracked-changes copy to send back. Submitting the same contract as a DOCX will produce one.

"AeroSpark says my document is a duplicate, but I meant to submit it again." An exact copy of something already submitted is flagged rather than quietly reprocessed, so you don't get two review threads for one contract. Choose the re-review option to run it again deliberately — useful when the policy has changed since the first look.

Looking for how we handle your data? See Security & Trust. Still stuck? Get in touch.