Getting Started

Personalization

Personalization is core to August's value. Unlike generic AI tools, August learns from your firm's specific language, standards, and precedent—so outputs match how your team actually works. Configure once, and every lawyer in your firm benefits from consistent, firm-specific AI assistance.

What Personalization Means in August

Personalization in August covers four areas:

  • Firm knowledge: Ingest templates, precedent agreements, and guidelines so AI understands your preferred language and approaches.

  • Review standards: Build Playbooks that capture preferred positions, fallback language, and red flags for recurring document types.

  • Automated workflows: Set up Workflows for repeatable tasks like diligence reviews, contract extraction, or weekly status updates.

  • User preferences: Configure notification settings, workspace defaults, and collaboration preferences.

Together, these capabilities let August operate as an extension of your firm's expertise.

Ingesting Firm Templates and Documents

August learns from the materials you provide. Upload representative precedent to give AI context for how your firm handles specific clause types, deal structures, or practice areas.

What to upload:

  • Precedent agreements that reflect your firm's negotiated positions

  • Template libraries and standard forms

  • Internal guidelines and memoranda

  • Sample matters showing how your firm structures work product

Upload documents directly to Assistant or organize them in Projects and folders for ongoing access.

Your documents are never used to train AI models. August maintains contractual agreements with all language model providers prohibiting training on or retention of user data. See Security and Privacy Overview for details.

Configuring Playbooks

Playbooks convert your firm's standards into operational review rules. Each playbook captures preferred positions, acceptable fallbacks, and terms that require escalation—so AI applies your standards consistently across every agreement.

Build playbooks two ways:

  • Generate via AI: Upload precedent agreements to Assistant and ask August to extract standards. Review, refine, and save the resulting playbook.

  • Build manually: Navigate to Playbooks in the sidebar and add rules directly—preferred position, fallbacks, unacceptable language, example clauses, and guidance notes.

Once created, apply playbooks in Assistant, in the Word Add-In, or embed them as steps in automated Workflows.

Setting Up Workflows

Workflows automate repetitive legal tasks. Define the task with natural language and receive a set of structured inputs and outputs, configure steps including control logic for human review or branching, and run manually, on a schedule, or when triggered by events. Workflows are versioned: each run pins to a specific definition so you can audit exactly what ran.

Workflow configuration includes:

  • Input fields: Define required and optional inputs—documents, folders, or parameters. Team members can run workflows without knowing the internals.

  • Steps: Sequence the execution—document intake, AI analysis, playbook review, control steps for human input or conditions, and output generation.

  • Outputs: Declare what the workflow produces—Word documents, summaries, or extraction tables.

  • Triggers: Set up automatic execution on schedules or events like uploads, emails, or webhooks.

Common workflow patterns:

  • First-pass diligence: Upload a data room, extract key terms across all agreements, and generate an executive summary.

  • Document triage with routing: Scan incoming documents, use condition steps to route flagged items, and include human review gates where needed.

  • Partner-reviewed outputs: Draft documents, pause for partner sign-off at a human input step, then finalize and deliver.

  • Status updates: Schedule weekly workflows to summarize matter developments and produce team or client updates.

Saving Custom Prompts andTemplates

August supports reuse of effective prompts and extraction templates:

  • Tabular Review templates: Save column configurations from Tabular Review and reuse them across document sets.

  • Playbook rules: Once a playbook is created, it's available firm-wide for consistent review workflows.

  • Assistant conversations: Effective prompt structures can be replicated across similar matters. Use chat history to revisit and continue earlier work.

User Preferences and Settings

Configure how August works for you personally:

Notification Preferences

  1. Go to Settings from the left navigation menu.

  2. Select Notifications.

  3. Toggle preferences for in-app notifications, email alerts, or both.

For high-volume matters, consider disabling email notifications for minor updates while keeping in-app notifications active.

Workspace Organization

Each user starts with a personal workspace and can create Projects to organize matters. User profiles are fully siloed from one another unless you proactively share work or create shared workspaces.

Collaboration Settings

Share workspaces, playbooks, and tabular reviews with colleagues. Shared workspaces preserve full context—documents, chat history, and outputs stay together. See Collaboration and Notifications for details.

The Personalization Workflow

Follow this three-step approach to configure August for your firm:

1

Train

Securely ingest sample matters, templates, and guidelines that reflect how your firm handles specific work. This gives August context for your preferred language and approaches.

2

Configure

Work with August's team to co-build playbooks and workflows until they exceed your standards.

3

Deploy

Launch from chat or email and receive polished Word or PDF documents. Your team runs the configured workflows, applies the playbooks, and benefits from firm-specific AI assistance.

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