User Guide

What is DocuLume

DocuLume is an AI-powered document intelligence and contract lifecycle management (CLM) platform. Upload virtually any document and DocuLume reads it, extracts the fields you care about, makes it searchable, and lets you ask questions in plain language — then carries contracts through review, approval, e-signature, and renewal.

Core capabilities covered in this guide:

• Universal document processing — OCR and parsing for PDFs, images, and office files.
• Custom field extraction — teach DocuLume the data points your business cares about.
• Document chat — ask questions of one document or many at once, with citations.
• Advanced search — keyword, semantic, and faceted search across your library.
• Bulk processing — ingest entire folders or cloud storage buckets at once.
• Contract lifecycle — intake, approval workflows, e-signature, and renewal tracking.

Signing in

Access DocuLume at app.doculume.com. You can sign in with:

• Email and password — for accounts created directly in DocuLume.
• Single sign-on (SAML 2.0) — if your organization has configured an identity provider. Enter your work email and you'll be redirected to your IdP.

If you were invited by a teammate, open the invitation link from your email, set a password (or sign in via SSO), and you'll join their workspace automatically. Forgot your password? Use Reset password on the login screen to receive a reset link.

Workspaces & roles

Your documents live inside a workspace. Larger organizations can have several workspaces (for example, by department or client) and switch between them from the workspace menu. Each workspace is isolated — documents and settings never leak across workspaces.

Access within a workspace is governed by role-based access control (RBAC). Typical roles:

Your administrator assigns roles and folder-level permissions. If you can't see a feature described here, you may not have the required permission — ask your workspace admin.

Uploading a document

To process a single document:

1. Click Upload from the documents view.
2. Select a file (PDF, image, or office document) or drag it into the upload area.
3. Optionally choose the destination folder and apply tags.
4. Click Upload. The document enters the processing pipeline immediately.

You'll see a live status indicator as the document moves through processing. You don't need to keep the tab open — processing continues on our servers and you'll be notified when it finishes.

How processing works

Every uploaded document runs through an automated pipeline:

1. OCR & text extraction — scanned pages and images are converted to machine-readable text.
2. Chunking — the text is split into passages so the AI can reason over long documents accurately.
3. Field extraction — your configured fields (and standard metadata) are pulled out.
4. Indexing — the document is added to the search index and made chat-ready.

Document status moves through states such as Queued → Processing → Extracted → Ready. Once a document is chat-ready, you can ask questions of it. You can monitor pipeline status from the document's detail view at any time.

Custom field extraction

Custom fields are the heart of DocuLume. Instead of generic extraction, you tell DocuLume exactly which data points to pull from your documents — effective date, counterparty, renewal term, payment amount, governing law, or anything specific to your business.

Creating a custom field

1. Go to Settings → Custom Fields.
2. Click New Field and give it a name (e.g. Renewal Date).
3. Choose a data type (text, date, number, currency, list, boolean).
4. Write an extraction prompt — a plain-language instruction describing what to find and how to format it.
5. Save. New uploads will populate this field automatically; existing documents can be re-evaluated.

Extraction prompts & versions

Extraction prompts are versioned. When you refine a prompt, DocuLume keeps the history so you can compare versions and roll back. You can activate a specific prompt version, and re-run extraction on documents to apply an improved prompt. See the knowledge base article on writing effective extraction prompts.

Document chat

Once a document is chat-ready, open it and use the Chat panel to ask questions in plain language:

• "What is the termination notice period?"
• "Summarize the payment obligations."
• "Does this contract auto-renew, and when?"

Answers are grounded in the document text and include citations back to the source passages, so you can verify every response. Chat history is saved per document in sessions — start a new session for a fresh line of questioning, or revisit a previous one. You can delete a session at any time.

Multi-document chat

Need to reason across several documents at once? Use multi-document chat to select a set of documents and ask questions spanning all of them — for example, "Which of these vendor contracts has the shortest termination notice?" Multi-chat sessions are saved separately so you can return to a comparison later.

Search & discovery

DocuLume offers several ways to find documents and data:

• Quick search — type-ahead results as you type, ideal for jumping to a known document.
• Comprehensive search — combines keyword and semantic (meaning-based) search so you find documents even when they don't contain your exact words.
• Faceted filtering — narrow by tags, folder, document type, dates, and any custom field.
• Find similar — from any document, surface others like it.

Search suggestions help you refine queries, and search analytics (for managers) show what your team is looking for. Results respect your permissions — you only ever see documents you're allowed to access.

Bulk processing

To ingest many documents at once — for example, migrating an existing contract archive — use Bulk Upload:

1. Go to Bulk Upload and choose a source: direct multi-file upload or a connected cloud storage location (e.g. an Azure Blob or S3 container).
2. For cloud storage, configure and validate the connection, then preview the files that will be imported.
3. Set the destination folder and any default tags or extraction settings.
4. Click Start. DocuLume creates a bulk job and processes documents in the background.
5. Track progress on the Jobs screen — you'll see per-document status and can cancel a job mid-run.

Contract lifecycle management

Beyond extraction, DocuLume can manage a contract from the moment somebody asks for it through to renewal. Each tracked contract carries a lifecycle state, and every change of state is recorded with who made it and when.

• Requesting a contract — choose Request a contract, pick the type, and fill in the intake form. Your administrator decides which fields appear and which are mandatory, so the right information is captured up front.
• Pipeline — the Pipeline view shows every tracked contract grouped by state, so you can see at a glance what is waiting on whom.

The NDA fast lane

Standard one-way NDAs rarely need review. NDA fast lane collects the other party's details and sends the agreement for signature immediately, skipping approval entirely. Use it for your own standard NDA; anything on the other side's paper, or with edits, should go through the normal route.

E-signature

Send a contract for signature without leaving DocuLume.

1. Open the contract and choose Send for signature.
2. Add the signers, with their names and email addresses. Where there is more than one, the contract is only complete once all of them have signed.
3. If you need signatures, dates, or initials in particular places, place those fields on the document before sending. Otherwise the provider positions them for you.
4. Send. Each signer receives an email with a link that takes them straight into signing — they don't need a DocuLume account.

While a contract is out for signature

The contract moves to Pending signature and the signature history on the contract shows where each signer has got to.

• Remind nudges a signer who hasn't acted.
• Cancel withdraws the request, for example when terms change.
• Refresh status re-checks with the provider, useful if you think an update hasn't come through.

Once everyone has signed

The contract moves to Executed on its own. DocuLume stores two files against it:

• the signed PDF, which becomes the version shown wherever the contract appears; and
• the signature certificate from the provider, recording who signed, when, and from where — this is the document to produce if execution is ever questioned.

The executed contract then goes through DocuLume's normal reading and indexing, so its terms are searchable alongside everything else without anyone re-uploading it.

Securing your account

Two-factor authentication

You can add a second step to your sign-in using any authenticator app, such as Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator, or 1Password.

1. Go to Settings → Security and choose Set up two-factor authentication.
2. Scan the QR code with your authenticator app. The code is generated inside DocuLume and never sent to an outside service.
3. Enter the six-digit code from the app to confirm.
4. Save your backup codes somewhere safe. Each one works once, and they are the way back in if you lose your phone.

From then on, signing in asks for your password and then a code from the app. If you run out of backup codes, you can generate a new set from the same screen.

Account lockout

Repeated failed sign-in attempts temporarily lock an account, and continued failures lock it until an administrator unlocks it. This limits the damage if somebody tries to guess a password. If you're locked out, wait for the timer or contact your administrator.

Resetting your password

Choose Forgot password on the sign-in screen. DocuLume emails you a verification link, and you set a new password from there — no need to raise a request with anyone.

Audit trail & history

Every change to a contract's fields and tags is recorded. Open a contract's History to see who changed what and when — useful for compliance, dispute resolution, and internal review. Combined with workspace-level audit logging, DocuLume gives you a complete, tamper-evident record of activity.

For contracts managed through the lifecycle module, the record goes further. Every move from one state to the next is written down as it happens: the step it left and the one it entered, who acted and in what role, the decision and any comment they left, and how long the contract waited at that step. Administrative overrides are recorded the same way, so nothing moves silently. That history is what feeds the timings you see in Reports, and it can be produced as evidence of how a particular agreement was approved.

Getting help

If something isn't working as expected:

• Check the FAQ and Knowledge Base for quick answers.
• Check the system status page for any ongoing incidents.
• Email our support team at support@pspinsights.com.