Playbooks

Think of a Playbook as a digital compliance assistant. Instead of reading through every page to find a specific clause, you can set rules and let Zefort do the heavy lifting. Playbooks scan your contracts to see if they follow your internal policies or legal requirements.

How to run a Playbook for a contract

Before you start, make sure your account has the Playbooks feature enabled. Your admin also needs to create the playbooks and define the rules first. To run a playbook, you’ll need an editor or admin license plus permission to edit the specific contract.

1. Open your contract and click the Playbooks tab.
2. Select a playbook from the dropdown menu.
3. Wait for the review to finish. It might take a moment depending on the size of the file.

Tip: You can start a playbook review even if the contract file is still being processed by the system. Just keep in mind that the review itself only kicks off once the initial processing is complete, so it might take a little longer to see your results.

Understanding your results

Once the review is done, each rule will show a specific status:

• Compliant: The contract follows your rule.
• Not compliant: The contract doesn’t meet the rule’s requirements.
• Unclear: The system couldn’t find enough information to make a call.
• Not evaluated: This happens if a rule was changed after the review. You’ll need to run the playbook again to get a fresh result.
• Reviewing: The AI is still reading the contract.
• No information: The contract doesn’t contain any information related to this rule.

When you see a result, Zefort provides a quote from the contract. Click the quotation to see the exact text highlighted in the contract preview.

Manual adjustments

If you disagree with the AI, you can set the result manually to correct it. You can also choose to review the contract again if you want a fresh scan.

View compliance across all contracts

You don’t have to check contracts one by one. You can see the big picture directly from your contracts desktop.

1. Go to your Contracts desktop.
2. Switch to Playbooks view.
3. Your table will now show playbook results for each contract.

• See more details: Hover your mouse over a specific policy result.
• Customize your view: Click the selection button in the title row to choose which policies you want to see.

Run playbooks in bulk

If you have dozens of contracts to check, do it all at once:

1. On the contracts desktop, switch to the Playbook view.
2. Select the contracts you want to check.
3. Click the Playbooks button in the top toolbar.
4. Choose your playbook and click Apply.

Setting up Playbooks (for Admins)

You can create as many Playbooks and rules as you need. To set up and manage Playbooks, you need an admin license with the “Can manage playbooks” permission enabled.

This is an add-on feature. If you wish to enable it for your account, please contact our sales team.

1. Open the Zefort menu and select Playbooks.
2. Click the Add playbook button and give it a name and description.
3. Click the Add rule button and enter a prompt in the Rule definition field to describe what the AI should look for.
4. Set a Default outcome and click the Add rule button.

Your playbook is now ready to use. Users across your account can select it to run compliance analyses on their contracts.

 

Tips for writing effective rules

Zefort automatically wraps your prompts in the necessary context and system instructions. To get the best results from the AI, your prompts should be concise, clear, and specific.

What to include

• What to check for: State the specific topic or clause clearly.
• Specific rules: Define the exact criteria the AI should use to determine compliance.

What to leave out

• Personas: Avoid filler like “You are a legal expert assistant.”
• Formatting: Skip instructions on how to display or format the answer, as Zefort automatically maps results to predefined compliance statuses.
• Filler phrases: Skip phrases like “read the document carefully.”
• Outcome instructions: Don’t include logic like “if the requirement is satisfied, select Compliant.” Zefort already provides these instructions to the AI.

 

Manage your rules

• Edit: Click the pen icon next to a rule. If you change a rule, the status of all existing contracts will change to “Not evaluated” so you know they need a re-scan.
• Delete: Click the trash icon to remove a rule.

Automate your compliance

You can put your compliance checks on autopilot by using Playbooks in your search automations. This allows you to automatically apply playbooks to contracts based on criteria you choose.

Check out the Search automations guide for more details.

Important note on AI results

Playbooks use advanced AI to help you find information faster. However, AI can sometimes misinterpret complex legal language or miss context that a human expert would catch.

Treat Playbook results as a helpful guide rather than a final legal determination. We always recommend performing a manual spot-check for critical compliance items, especially when the system returns an “Unclear” status. This feature is intended to assist your professional review, not replace it.