What's new
The Irys sidebar in Microsoft Word used to see one thing: the document in front of it. Now the document can be linked to the matter it belongs to, and everything the sidebar does has the rest of the matter behind it.
- Link once, and it stays linked. Pick the matter in the sidebar, by search or from Suggested and Recent. The link is stored with the document, so closing Word and opening the file weeks later brings the matter back and opens the sidebar on its own. You always pick the matter; Irys never guesses it.
- The matter card. Matter name and client at the top of the sidebar, expanding into a summary: where it stands, the parties, key dates, open issues. Each line shows where it came from, and the matter opens in Irys in one click.
- No modes to choose. The Chat and Work toggle is gone. Ask a question and you get an answer; give an instruction and you get tracked changes. The sidebar reads the request and decides which you meant.
- You can see what it read. Every answer lists the documents, notes and attachments it actually used, and any of them opens in Irys. Comments Irys writes into the document name their source.
- Go deeper. A question gets a quick answer first. When that is not enough, Go deeper reruns the same question against the whole matter.
- Smaller edits. Revisions are kept to the smallest span that does the job, so fixing a word changes that word rather than striking and rewriting the paragraph around it.
- Per-change review, and no silent accepting. Accept or reject each change on its own, accept or reject them all, or step through them in the document. Word's own Review tab works on them too. Sending a new instruction while changes are pending no longer accepts them quietly: Irys stops and asks.
- Save to Irys. Send the document back to the matter from the sidebar and your edits sync across. An answer can be saved as a matter note.
- Open it from the ribbon. An Ask Irys button on the Home tab, and Ask Irys about this on the right-click menu, which opens the sidebar with your selection already quoted.
Why this matters
An add-in that only reads the open document can only answer about the open document. That is the gap lawyers kept running into: the clause in front of them made sense only against the filings, the exhibits and the three drafts before it, none of which the sidebar could see. Linking the file to its matter closes that gap, and the list of what was read is what makes the answer checkable rather than just confident.
The review change matters for a different reason. Pending tracked changes used to be accepted on your behalf the moment you sent another message. They are not any more. Nothing in your document changes state unless you say so.
How to use it
- Install the add-in from within Word (Insert → Add-ins → Get Add-ins, search Irys) or from the Microsoft Marketplace
- Open a document and click Link a matter in the sidebar
- Ask a question, or say what you want changed
- Resolve the review card before you move on, then Save to Irys
Included with every Irys plan at no additional cost. Works in Word on the desktop (Windows and Mac) and Word on the web.