Feature Friday: Electronic Signature Collaboration Tools from DocuSign

We've released a number of innovative electronic signature features in our Spring '10 release. Today's Feature Friday discusses the eSignature collaboration tools so you can make and track changes to documents.

How to Enable and Use Collaboration Tools on DocuSign's Electronic Signature Platform

You can enable and use collaboration tools to make changes and additions to the document through DocuSign, while managing all signers' approval initials for the changes. This feature also allows you to maintain a secure audit trial of the changes.

DocuSign provides two methods of online collaboration to make changes to a document: document markup and field markup. The document markup feature lets recipients use a markup tool to white out document text, edit text and add new text over it, or just to add new text in a blank section of a document. The field markup feature lets a sender enable certain fields so the content can be edited by recipients. All changes to a document must be initialed by the person making the changes and approved by all other recipients. Recipients who signed the document before the changes were made are given an opportunity to review and approve the changes before any document is finalized.

The collaboration tools allow documents to be edited through DocuSign, while managing approval initials from all signers for the changes and maintaining a secure audit trail of the changes. Document markup is enabled for the whole document while field markup is only enabled for secure fields. Enable document markup after adding documents and recipients as you normally would.

In the message window, select "allow signers to edit documents". This allows all recipients to access the markup tool.

To enable field markup, open the properties dialogue box for the appropriate secure field and select the "allow all to edit". By default, "require initial" is selected when the field is enabled for markup. This requires the signers that have already completed signing to review any changes to the field and initial the changes to complete the envelope.  For any signers who have already completed signing, you can clear the "require initial" checkbox, as they do not have to review and initial any changes.

Making Changes Using DocuSign's Collaboration Tools

Finish sending your document and when the recipient gets the document they can make changes using the active tools.

For field markup changes, when a change is made through a field made for editing, a small tab appears adjacent to the field and an initial tab appears in the margin of the page.

For document markup changes, the recipient clicks markup document to activate the markup tool. The recipient confirms they want to make a change and the markup tool appears on the left side of the document. To add a change, drag the mark box onto the document and drop it where you want to cover or add text. Use your cursor to resize the mark up box as needed.

Add the change and initial the margin. When the document is completed, the signing request is sent via email to the next recipient. An email is also sent to the recipients that previously completed the document. All of these recipients have a chance to review the document and make their own changes. These changes and counter changes can go back and forth until all recipients agree to the changes or someone declines to sign the document. All the changes are recorded in the document history.

Take a look at the video below, which will take you through a step-by-step of using these electronic signature collaboration tools. What features would you like to see highlighted in Feature Friday?