Word Plugin

ENSPACE inside Word

The Word Plugin is an ENSPACE product that works inside Microsoft Word. From a side panel in Word itself, you sign in, choose a workspace and use the resources already configured in ENSPACE without leaving the document.

The connection goes both ways: Word reaches ENSPACE agents, playbooks and templates, and the document you are working on can become a record in your workspace.

This version focuses on AI and templates. Task management is not part of the current scope.

What you can do

• Run AI reviewer agents from the document chat.
• Apply playbooks to reviews, to use a specific set of criteria.
• Choose ready-made templates by category.
• Turn the current document into a new template.
• Configure variables directly in Word.
• Create an item in the referenced category from the plugin.

First access

1. With the manifest already loaded (see the How to install section), open the ENSPACE side panel through the Open ENSPACE Pane button, in the ENSPACE group on the Home tab.
2. Sign in with your ENSPACE credentials, without leaving Word.
3. Select the workspace you want to work in. The agents, playbooks, categories and templates shown from here respect that workspace and your permissions.

The ENSPACE panel

The side panel opens on the right of Word and stays with the document: it remains open while you write, and everything the plugin offers comes from there.

The top of the panel shows the active workspace. You can switch workspaces through the same selector at any time, and agents, playbooks, categories and templates are reloaded for the environment you choose.

Right below are the two tabs that divide the plugin:

• Assistants (AI) — the workspace's reviewer agents.
• Templates — the document templates published in the workspace.

Panel language

The panel has its own language, independent of Word's. The flag button at the top opens the list with Portuguese, English and Spanish, and the choice applies to the plugin's labels.

List or cards

The agent list has two display formats, and a button switches between them: cards, which show each agent's description, and list, more compact and useful when the workspace has many agents.

Native agents and workspace agents

Agents appear grouped by origin. The native ones ship with the product and are available in any workspace. The agents your team created appear on the same screen, in the custom group. Both types work the same way inside the plugin; what changes is who maintains them.

To create and configure agents, see AI Agents.

AI reviewer agents

In the panel, choose a Reviewer agent published in the workspace and define the input: the whole document or a selected passage, when the agent allows it. If you want to apply a specific set of rules, select a playbook before running. Execution happens through the document chat.

The result appears in the chat, indicating processing, completion, review or error. When the agent cites sources, the documents and passages used as the basis are also shown.

Working on a selected passage

By default the agent reads the whole document, and the Full Document chip, above the message field, shows that. When you select a passage in Word, the panel offers to add the selection to the chat, and the chip switches to the selection: from then on the agent works only on that part.

The Quick actions on the same bar bring ready-made instructions for the most common requests, such as Rewrite more formally, Summary of changes, Review selection only and Suggest title. They fill in the message for you, and the text remains editable before sending.

The same path exists outside the panel: with a passage selected, Word's right-click menu offers Review with ENSPACE and Add to AI chat.

Accept or reject the changes

When the agent changes the text, the edits arrive as Word tracked changes. You review each suggestion and accept or reject it individually using Word's change tracking, which generates a new version of the document. If the agent requires human review, the result stays pending until an authorized user validates it.

A click on the suggested passage opens Word's review card, which shows the replaced text and the new text side by side, with the decision buttons right there.

To go through the whole document, Word's Review tab has Accept and Move to Next, which decides one suggestion at a time, and Accept All Changes, for the entire document. The same commands exist on the reject side.

Conversation history

Every conversation with an agent is kept in the panel. The history icon, next to the selected agent, opens the list of previous conversations; when you choose one, it returns to the chat with all its messages, and you can continue from there or just check what was asked before.

This history is what lets you reconstruct the trail of a review: which agent ran, with which playbook, and what it answered to each request.

What the AI uses as context

• The open document, or only the selected text, when enabled in the agent.
• The workspace's sources and criteria, when inherited context is active.
• The language model defined in the agent itself.
• The output in the format configured in the agent: Markdown, plain text or structured text.

Every execution is logged with user, workspace, agent, version, time and result, for history and audit.

Playbooks

A playbook is a set of instructions you attach to the agent at run time. It does not replace the agent: it defines the set of criteria the review will follow. Without a playbook, the agent applies only its own rules.

The Select playbook selector has a search field and separates the playbooks by origin. The native ones cover document quality, general contract review, professional services contracts, supply contracts, NDAs, privacy policies and terms of use. Below them come the custom playbooks written by your team in the workspace.

Each playbook carries a short description of what it analyses, next to its name. Choose the one that matches the open document: a professional services contract reviewed by the NDA playbook returns findings that do not apply.

With the playbook selected, the request in the chat is evaluated against those criteria. The typical answer lists the non-conformities found and what needs to be done about each one; when the request also asks for the correction, the agent returns the adjusted text as tracked changes.

Templates and variables

• Select by category: choose a category and view the ready-made templates associated with it.
• Create from the document: with the document open, generate a new template preserving its structure, useful for reusing already approved documents.
• Configure variables: identify in the text which information should become variable fields, for example party name, amount, date or deadline, and configure each field in Word itself. The template is ready for reuse, respecting permissions and availability in the workspace.
• Create an item in the referenced category: from the plugin, request the creation of an item, linking the document you worked on to the corresponding record in ENSPACE.

Creating a template from the document

With the document open in Word, its own content becomes the body of the template:

1. In Create Document Template, fill in the Category it belongs to, the Name it appears under in the list, the Output, which is the name of the generated file, and an optional Description.
2. Check the template in the list. It arrives with the category, the number of variables and the date of the last update. Up to this point Save has stored only those details: the document content has not been sent yet.
3. Click the template and confirm with Load. This step is what sends the current document as the body of the template.
4. After mapping the variables and the blocks, Save stores the finished template.

Template variables

On the Document fields tab, the editor lists the fields of the chosen category's form. Each one becomes a card with the field type and the matching variable.

To insert a variable, place the cursor at the point in the document where the value should appear and click the card. The marker goes into the text and is replaced by the record's data every time the template is used.

Each field appears twice in the list: the Original value and the Formatted value, which applies currency and date masks. Use the formatted one when the value goes straight into the document text, and the original one when you need the raw data.

Repeat this for every field that should receive variable data and, when you are done, click Save.

Using a ready-made template

The template replaces the content of the open document, so start from a blank one:

1. On the Templates tab, use the search or the category filter and click the template you want.
2. Confirm the replacement. The plugin warns that the current content will be lost.
3. The body of the template goes into the document with the variables still as markers, and the template editor opens alongside it so you can check the mapping.

The template inside the workspace

The template is not tied to Word. Once saved, it exists in the chosen category inside ENSPACE and appears in that category's list of document templates like any other. From there, the Actions menu offers Create, which generates the document from the template using a record's data.

In practice the same template serves both sides: whoever works in Word uses it through the panel, and whoever works in the workspace uses it through the category.

Smart blocks

Variables swap one value for another. Smart blocks decide whether a passage appears at all and how many times it repeats, based on the record's data. They live on the second tab of the template editor and are assembled through a form: you pick the options, check the result in the How it will look in the document box and only then insert the marker into the text.

Show only if

Makes a passage appear only when a condition is met, which avoids keeping two versions of the same document.

• Field to check — the form field that decides.
• Condition — equal to or different from.
• Expected value — the value being compared.
• Is the value text? — tick this when the comparison is against text rather than a number or a boolean.

The How it will look in the document box shows the generated structure, in the format {{IF variable === 'value'}} content {{END-IF}}.

Place the cursor where the condition should apply and click Insert into document. Then write inside the marker, between the IF and the END-IF, exactly the text that should appear when the condition is true.

Repeat a section

Goes through a list or a table in the form and repeats a passage for each row, which handles relationships of variable size, such as the items of an order or the parties to a contract.

• Form list or table — the field being traversed.
• Alias for each row — optional, and only appears in the code. It is how you refer to the current row, for example item.
• Information that appears for each row — use Add row information and choose the columns that go into the text. Without at least one, the passage comes out empty.

The preview box shows the structure in the format {{FOR item IN variable}} content {{= $item.subfield}} {{END-FOR item}}. Place the cursor and click Insert into document. Create as many blocks as you need and, at the end, click Save.

Security and governance

• Access requires authentication in ENSPACE.
• You only see workspaces and resources you have permission for.
• The selected workspace defines the context of agents, playbooks, categories and templates.
• Every AI execution logs user, workspace, agent, version, time and result.
• When the agent requires human review, the result stays pending until an authorized user acts.
• The sources used in the analysis are traceable when citation is enabled.

How to install

In this version, the plugin is distributed by manifest, not through Microsoft's official store, which is still under review. The manifest is an XML file that describes the add-in for Word: name, icons, permissions and the addresses of ENSPACE's services. Word loads the plugin directly from ENSPACE's servers, with no program installed on the computer.

The manifest is published at https://ms-plugin.enspace.io/manifest.xml. You can load it individually, in your own Word, or centrally, through the Microsoft 365 administrator.

Downloading the manifest from the Integrations screen

The manifest is also available inside the workspace itself. Under Settings > Integrations, in the Documents section, the Word Plugin card states the compatibility (Word 2016+, Office 365 and Word Web) and the file format (XML, in the Office Add-in standard). The Use Plugin button opens the integration page, which brings together the plugin description, the installation steps and the Download Manifest (.xml) button.

The routine presented on that page is:

1. Click Download Manifest (.xml) to download the file.
2. Open Microsoft Word and go to the Insert tab.
3. Click Add-ins (or My Add-ins).
4. Select Upload My Add-in and send the downloaded file.

That routine is a summary, and the exact path changes depending on which Word you use. The sections below cover the steps for each one, plus distribution to several people at once.

Saving the manifest file

Every installation path starts with the file saved on the computer. Open https://ms-plugin.enspace.io/manifest.xml in the browser, right-click the page and choose Save as, keeping the name manifest.xml and the XML type. Some browsers display the file contents instead of downloading it: in that case, Ctrl+S (or Command+S, on macOS) saves the same page.

The file points to ENSPACE's servers, so plugin updates arrive on their own. You only need to repeat the installation when the team announces that the manifest has changed.

In Word for the web

1. Open a document in Word at office.com.
2. On the Home tab, select Add-ins and then More Settings.
3. In the Office Add-ins dialog box, select Upload My Add-in.
4. Select Browse, choose the saved manifest.xml and confirm with Upload.

Microsoft covers this path in detail in Sideload Office Add-ins to Office on the web.

In Word for Windows

The application installed on Windows does not have the Upload My Add-in option, which belongs to Word for the web. Here Word reads the manifest from a shared folder registered as a trusted catalog.

First, share the folder:

1. Create a folder for the manifest, for example C:\ENSPACE-Addin, and copy manifest.xml into it.
2. Right-click the folder, choose Properties, open the Sharing tab and select Share.
3. In the Network access window, add the people who will use the plugin, with at least Read/Write permission, and select Share.
4. In the Your folder is shared confirmation, note the full network path shown after the folder name, in the \\COMPUTER-NAME\ENSPACE-Addin format. Select Done.

Then register the folder as a trusted catalog in Word:

1. Open Word and go to File, Options, Trust Center, Trust Center Settings, Trusted Add-in Catalogs.
2. Paste the noted path into the Catalog Url box and select Add catalog.
3. Select the Show in Menu check box for the newly added item and confirm with OK, in both windows.
4. Close and reopen Word.
5. On the Home tab, select Add-ins and then Advanced. Depending on the Word version and language, this option also shows up as More Add-ins.
6. In the Office Add-ins dialog box, open SHARED FOLDER, select ENSPACE and choose Add.

Microsoft limits this method to Windows computers and treats it as a path for one-off installation, demos and acceptance testing, not for production distribution. To install the plugin for several people at once, the recommended path is centralized deployment: the Microsoft 365 administrator publishes the manifest through the admin center, and the plugin appears directly under Add-ins for everyone who was granted permission, with none of these steps.

Microsoft covers this path in detail in Sideload Office Add-ins on Windows from a network share.

In Word for macOS

On macOS, Word reads manifests from a local folder belonging to the application itself.

1. Quit Word completely, under Word, Quit Word, or with Command+Q. Closing only the document window is not enough.
2. Save manifest.xml.
3. Open Finder and press Cmd+Shift+G to open the Go to folder box.
4. Enter /Users/<username>/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Documents/wef, replacing <username> with your user name. If the wef folder does not exist, create one with that name, all in lowercase.
5. Copy manifest.xml into that folder.
6. Open Word and open a document.
7. On the Home tab, select Add-ins and choose ENSPACE from the menu.

Microsoft covers this path in detail in Sideload Office Add-ins on Mac for testing.

If the add-in does not show up

On Windows, check in this order:

• the folder was actually shared, not just created;
• the address entered in Word starts with \\, not with C:;
• the Show in Menu box is checked for the catalog;
• manifest.xml is inside the shared folder;
• Word was closed completely and opened again.

On macOS, check in this order:

• the file really is in ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.Word/Data/Documents/wef;
• the name is manifest.xml, not manifest.xml.txt;
• Word was quit completely before the copy, and opened after it;
• the installed version is Microsoft Word from Microsoft 365.

If it still does not show up on macOS, force Word to read the folder again: quit Word, take manifest.xml out of wef, open and close Word again, put the file back in the folder and open Word.

Confirming that the plugin loaded

On the Home tab, the ENSPACE group shows the Open ENSPACE Pane button, which opens the side panel described in the First access section. With a passage of text selected, the right-click menu offers Review with ENSPACE and Add to AI chat.

Removing the plugin

In all three cases, the add-in goes away by clearing the Office cache on the computer. In Word for the web, clearing the browser data has the same effect.

What this version does not do yet

• Lists only Reviewer agents published and enabled for the plugin.
• AI execution is single step, with no flows using multiple agents.
• The AI does not replace the user's review and decision, especially in legal, regulatory or high-impact documents.
• AI changes always arrive as tracked changes, for the user to accept or reject.
• Task management is not available in this version.