Cool Gadgets: Apple iPad, iPhone 4, Droid 2

While Apple’s iPad came out in the spring, the iPad continued the buzz this summer! With Designed for Mobile, you can use electronic signature from DocuSign on Blackberry, iPhone, iPad, Android and Windows Mobile phones.

However, the iPad’s size and utility means that you can create envelopes on the iPad with templates enabled, or send for electronic signature with Freeform signing. Take a look at this blog post if you want to use DocuSign on your iPad!

A Feature Friday blog post also highlighted another way you can use DocuSign if you get an email attachment that needs electronic signatures, with Email to Electronic Signature. Of course, you can also use this feature on your desktop or laptop as well as your iPad!

Ensuring Your Electronic Signature Stands Up in Court

Ken Moyle, DocuSign’s Vice President of Legal and Corporate Affairs and Chief Legal Officer, shared thoughts regarding issues your should consider so that your electronic signature will stand up in court.

When you do business electronically, you should anticipate the need to produce evidence that proves a given person signed a given electronic document on a given date. That means you should look at taking such steps as:

For the rest of Ken’s commentary, take a look at the blog post which also shares authentication and electronic signature process considerations to note when selecting a vendor.

Our real estate team is also excited to make a special offer to new subscribers – between now and Labor Day, get a $20 Visa® gift card when you sign up for a DocuSign prepaid annual plan! Members of NAR should sign up with their NRDS numbers to take advantage of their special pricing.

Enjoy the last days of summer!

We’re excited to announce that our electronic signature service is now available within Real Estate Industry Solutions’ Form Simplicity web-based real estate forms service! With the DocuSign integration, Form Simplicity now provides end-to-end online real estate forms to expedite real estate transactions while eliminating the need for paper processes.

Developed by Real Estate Industry Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of Florida REALTORS® and the largest trade organization in Florida with more than 115,000 members, Form Simplicity offers real estate professionals the ability to quickly create and organize forms for residential or commercial transactions. DocuSign’s advanced electronic signature functionality provides Form Simplicity users the ability to accelerate the real estate document signing process online and ensure deals close faster, while leveraging complete visibility into the document workflow.

In a competitive market, minutes can literally make the difference when closing a deal. With Form Simplicity, real estate professionals can more quickly prepare documents for client electronic signature anytime from anywhere. With a simple click of the mouse, real estate professionals can access DocuSign from within Form Simplicity. It takes just minutes for the user to tag any document with DocuSign’s familiar yellow Stick-eTabs®. Once the document tagging process is completed, the client receives an email notification, is authenticated and is quickly navigated through the electronic signature process. By extending the integration of DocuSign within Form Simplicity, real estate agents can further simplify the real estate contract signing process, save hours of time each week, eliminate signing errors and accelerate deal close rates.

Joe Ballarino, president and chief operating officer of Real Estate Industry Solutions, shares:

“Form Simplicity maximizes agent productivity and now with the addition of DocuSign, the standard in electronic signature, we anticipate the adoption rate will continue to increase rapidly. Now Form Simplicity users will have unparalleled convenience and ease of use to quickly send forms to clients for electronic signature with DocuSign.

Form Simplicity users can now join more than 30,000 real estate professionals eliminating paper and expediting real estate transactions with DocuSign. Rather than driving across town to get a signature or forcing clients to find a fax machine, real estate professionals use DocuSign to execute agreements with buyers and sellers electronically. With real estate forms signed in minutes, not days, DocuSign real estate professionals achieve higher sales, increase client satisfaction and maintain a competitive edge. Safe and secure, the DocuSign electronic signature process is also easy to use and legally compliant.

Dave Thorpe, market director at DocuSign,

Real Estate Industry Solutions and DocuSign provides real estate professionals with state of the art technology to better manage workflows, and close real estate transactions faster and easier. Real estate professionals can now leverage the power of DocuSign electronic signature services directly from within Form Simplicity anytime, anywhere for a rich, complete and convenient end-to-end forms management process. This partnership is another example of DocuSign’s leadership as the standard in electronic signature solutions for real estate professionals.

Take a look for more information about DocuSign and Real Estate Industry Solutions!

We’re honored to be named a Top 50 Service Provider by Mortgage Technology magazine. Our inclusion as a Mortgage Technology Top 50 Service Provider was based on four major criteria—customer satisfaction, functionality, market share and viable revenue model. The providers on the list have satisfied users and show the ability to hold them by keeping those customers apace of the technology deployed by competing lenders.

According to Mortgage Technology, this year’s Top 50 Service Providers are mainstays with extensive mortgage experience. Although every year new companies make their way into the mortgage space, lenders continue to look for companies with longevity in mortgage. Additionally, industry consolidation is pushing some newcomers out of the market; therefore, the publication believes it is a good time for an established technology vendor with a proven track record, solid financials and a steady client base.

DocuSign continues to demonstrate leadership and market dominance in the electronic signature market, serving more than 30,000 customers and executing nearly 100 million signature events. As an example of DocuSign’s leadership, earlier this year DocuSign spearheaded an initiative for the FHA to clarify its position on electronic third-party signatures. On April 8, 2010, the FHA issued a mortgagee letter clarifying its policy, which is considered the first in what is expected to be a series of responses to this DocuSign initiative.

In June, DocuSign hosted the 2010 ESIGN Summit in San Francisco with a live keynote address from President Bill Clinton (via satellite). Gary Thomas, first vice president-elect of the National Association of REALTORS® presented, discussing how DocuSign enables REALTORS® and their clients to transact business from any place anytime. Other Industry visionaries and clients from mortgage and real estate sectors to technology and wealth management discussed the boundless opportunities to transact business more efficiently and environmentally friendly with DocuSign. To kick-off the Summit, DocuSign announced that it led a coalition in designating June 30 as National ESIGN Day to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the signing of the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN).

DocuSign provides the largest and fastest growing electronic signature platform available and enables mortgage professionals, small businesses and enterprise organizations to operate with greater agility, more efficiently, while enhancing profitability and compliance. DocuSign is the only award-winning electronic signature platform to securely manage and control the complete document signing process offering unlimited mobility and convenience.

Click for the full list of Mortgage Technology Top 50 Service Providers. Doug Wheeler, vice president of marketing for DocuSign, shares:

We are pleased to be recognized as a Top 50 Service Provider by Mortgage Technology. The DocuSign electronic signature service offers mortgage and real estate professionals a competitive advantage in a challenging market by providing the right tools at the right time to complete deals faster—from anywhere, anytime. We’re proud to be among this prestigious group of providers.

• contact management tools
• time management tools
• transaction management tools
• fully branded marketing tools
• document storage features

Wise Agent also offers 24 hour customer support – the only system in the real estate industry to do so. They also offer free live online training classes, great for you to learn how to link your Wise Agent account to your website, so you can capture and follow-up with new leads!

By seamlessly connecting technology, people and business practices, Wise Agent increases productivity, organization while making it easy for its members to give full service to their clients to build long term relationships. Wise Agent’s partnership with DocuSign brings electronic signature to Wise Agent’s members, allowing for a completely paperless transaction from listing to close and then stores all documents online for easy access.

Top 5 Reasons Wise Agent Chose DocuSign as its Electronic Signature Partner

5. In a world where being “green” matters, Wise Agent supports the idea of a paperless transaction.

4. The DocuSign user interface is simple and intuitive.

3. DocuSign is the trusted resource in the industry.

2. At Wise Agent, customer service is paramount. We always try to partner with companies that have similar ideals when it comes to customer support, and we feel DocuSign is one of those companies.

1. We really liked and believed in the people behind DocuSign, including An Bui, Mike Pressnall, and Dave Thorpe.

Want to learn more about Wise Agent and DocuSign? Click to learn how you can capture leads and nurture the relationship with Wise Agent before closing the deal with electronic signature from DocuSign!

DocuSign electronic signature service allows you to send forms for e-signature and e-sign forms. Using flexmls forms and DocuSign together, you can send forms using email to gather the legally binding electronic signatures you need.

If you’re already a DocuSign subscriber, you can connect your DocuSign account and your flexmls account. Sign in once, and each time you visit the DocuSign tab after, you can create new DocuSign envelopes for electronic signature.

If you aren’t yet a DocuSign subscriber, you can use the DocuSign tab to learn more about electronic signature from DocuSign, or to sign up.

Once you’re signed in, the DocuSign tab will allow you to select all forms in the current flexmls forms folder, the current form, or any combination of forms.

On the right hand side, you can assign people to the roles defined in the selected forms. The roles listed will be those included in any of the forms in the folder, so you can send the forms to the appropriate parties.

If you’ve used the auto-populate feature on the forms, the corresponding roles in the DocuSign tab will already be filled in.

Use the order box to designate the order in which the documents should be signed. Below, you can add additional recipients as signers, or you can send a carbon copy to a non-signing party.

Click “Create Envelope” to continue to the DocuSign page.

If you’ve previously created envelopes for the forms folder, the DocuSign tab will also have links to any related envelopes. Envelopes are listed by the creation date, along with status, and the subject of the DocuSign message relating to the envelope, included for your reference.

If you need to make changes to your DocuSign settings, click on the “DocuSign Settings” option under “forms” on your menu.

DocuSign is also integrated in other real estate forms, including zipForm 6, Realfast and others! DocuSign: fast, complete and trusted electronic signature for your needs.

Did you know that electronic signature is now accessible from within Realfast2Go, real estate forms software from Realfast? Used by over 61,000 real estate professionals in more than 12 states, Realfast2Go now seamlessly integrates with our electronic signature service, providing end-to-end web-based automated real estate forms. With advanced electronic signature functionality, Realfast users can accelerate the real estate document signing process and ensure deals close faster, while leveraging complete visibility into the document process.

In a competitive market, minutes can literally make the difference when closing a deal. With Realfast2Go, real estate professionals can more quickly prepare documents for client electronic signature anytime, anywhere. With a simple click of the mouse, real estate professionals can access DocuSign from within Realfast2Go. In minutes, users can tag any document with DocuSign’s familiar yellow Stick-eTabs. Once the document tagging process is completed, the sender’s client receives an email notification, is authenticated and can quickly navigate through the electronic signature process. By extending the integration of DocuSign within Realfast2Go, real estate agents can further simplify the real estate contract signing process, save hours of time each week, eliminate signing errors and accelerate deal close rates.

John Mayes, chief executive officer of Realfast, shares:

Realfast listens to our customers and adds the features to Realfast2Go that will maximize agent productivity. Electronic signature capability is in high demand and DocuSign is the market leader in electronic signatures. Now Realfast2Go users will have unparalleled convenience and ease of use to quickly send forms to clients for electronic signature with DocuSign. Realfast2Go really is the easiest way for real estate professionals to complete a paperless transaction.

Realfast users can now join more than 30,000 real estate professionals in eliminating paper and expediting real estate transactions with DocuSign. Rather than driving across town to get a signature or forcing clients to find a fax machine, real estate professionals use DocuSign to execute agreements with buyers and sellers electronically. With real estate forms signed in minutes, not days, DocuSign real estate professionals achieve higher sales, increase client satisfaction and maintain a competitive edge. Safe and secure, the DocuSign e-signature process is also easy to use and legally compliant.

Dave Thorpe, market director at DocuSign, explains how providing electronic signature in real estate forms benefits real estate professionals:

Realfast and DocuSign provide real estate professionals with state of the art technology to better manage workflows, and close real estate transactions faster and easier. Real estate professionals can now leverage the power of DocuSign electronic signature services directly from Realfast2Go anytime, anywhere for a rich, complete and convenient end-to-end forms management process. This partnership with Realfast is another example of DocuSign’s leadership as the standard in electronic signature solutions for real estate professionals.

Click for more information about DocuSign and Realfast2Go.

Make Your Voice Heard – Share Which E-Signature Features YOU WANT

We want your feedback on what features you value most in our electronic signature service to improve our e-sign offering.

Please take this short survey (approximately 16 questions or 5-7 minutes to complete) and let us know what features you find valuable and what features you don’t. Your input is vital to us. Please forward to any other real estate professionals that may also have input!

Thanks so much for your help!


- Tom Gonser, Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, & the DocuSign Team

DocuSign CEO and president Steve King welcomed more than 300 attendees with the news that DocuSign led a coalition to make June 30 National ESIGN Day. Both houses of the U.S. Congress passed the resolutions to make this happen (see the blog post link for details). The ESIGN Summit began with a special message from Representative Jim McDermott (D-WA) who commented on the transformation the ESIGN Act has had on how we conduct transactions and commerce today, and applauded DocuSign’s leadership in driving e-signature adoption to increase productivity and efficiency for businesses and government. In the video below, these remarks take place from 1:57- 2:52.

In his address titled “Embracing Our Common Humanity,” President Bill Clinton greeted the attendees, citing a number of significant anniversaries his foundation observed.

Along with presenting a balanced budget to Congress and the Middle East peace process, he noted that the ESIGN Act will have one of the largest impacts on how people live and work. President Clinton spoke about the top challenges the world faces today, and the ways information technology can be used to better the lives of people around the world. He expressed his belief in the transformative power of the Internet and said he was concerned most about expanding its use worldwide to connect more people and remove additional barriers:

We’ve learned throughout all of human history that trust is the basis for all commerce…We have to work harder to get countries not to block it, rather than keeping bad apples out of it

Next Gary Thomas, first vice president-elect, National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), discussed the importance of relationships in the real estate industry. As the largest trade organization in America, NAR made a strategic financial investment in DocuSign in November 2009 through its Second Century Ventures fund.

NAR’s 1.1 million REALTORS® are helping people realize the American Dream of home ownership. Our alliance with DocuSign enables REALTORS® and their clients to track business from any place any time. Now real estate closings are radically faster, contracts don’t have to be faxed back and forth, and home buyers and sellers don’t have to come into the office to sign papers—they can even be signed from an airplane 30,000 feet in the sky

Thomas said, referring to a recent San Francisco Chronicle story about a couple who e-signed their real estate documents midflight with DocuSign.

Kendall Collins, chief marketing officer at salesforce.com, shared the company’s vision for Cloud 2, collaboration that leverages mobility and social networking features popularized by Facebook and Twitter-like profiles, status updates and real-time feeds to empower enterprises with a new level of productivity only possible in the cloud. In speaking how electronic signatures are moving to Cloud 2, Collins said traditional wet signatures are slow, provide no tracking and are not environmentally friendly:

I am happy to say that the last mile of every transaction is now done in the cloud. We are delighted today to be talking about our relationship with DocuSign, a leader in electronic signatures.

DocuSign founder and chief strategy officer, Tom Gonser, joined salesforce.com on stage to demonstrate how integrating DocuSign’s electronic signature platform with Salesforce Chatter can foster collaboration within an entire organization, sending alerts when a contract is opened, signed and when a deal is won in real-time.

Aaron Levie, co-founder and chief executive officer of Box.net, described the new workplace that takes place outside the walls of a single organization between networks of vendors and partners and business, where content is centralized in the cloud to integrate, manage and access online. Levie announced:

We are excited about the ability to now easily transact business in the cloud through our partnership with DocuSign. The millions of documents on Box.net can now be signed and transacted with DocuSign.

In conclusion, DocuSign’s Tom Gonser spoke about the evolution of how business transactions have been signed through the ages and showcased DocuSign’s latest innovations that are adding new levels of flexibility, collaboration and mobility to core business processes of completing business transactions. Gonser related that electronic signature technology has moved beyond just signing documents and that DocuSign has created a platform that manages the entire document electronic signature process—with powerful collaboration and negotiation tools to accelerate business from anywhere, anytime.

He demonstrated the first Apple® iPad electronic signature application, illustrating how easy it is to access documents for signature via handheld devices and the rich real-time reporting DocuSign offers.

Attendees praised DocuSign for driving the National ESIGN Day resolution and taking the industry lead on raising awareness of the key role of electronic signatures in the growth of commerce trend toward more environmentally friendly and efficient business practices.

DocuSign chairman Keith Krach commended the event for bringing together industry luminaries and leaders in markets such as finance, e-commerce and real estate:

DocuSign is not only leading the industry with the most advanced product, the most strategic partnerships and the greatest number of customers, by creating the industry discussion about the future of business transactions, DocuSign is validating its position as the market leader and global standard in electronic signature.

Click to learn more about the 2010 ESIGN Summit, or you can view a short video of the event below:

We’re excited to announce the advanced functionality of our electronic signature service within flexmls Forms. With FBS, creators of the flexmls® family of Web applications used by more than 90,000 real estate professionals, we’ve extended the integration of DocuSign to provide pre-tagged flexmls Forms. This advanced functionality provides flexmls Forms users heightened convenience with DocuSign pre-tagged flexmls forms to accelerate the real estate document signing process and ensure deals close faster.

In the competitive real estate market, minutes can literally make the difference when closing a deal. Through flexmls Forms Web solution, real estate professionals can more quickly prepare documents for client electronic signature. With a simple click of the mouse, real estate professionals can select pre-tagged forms within flexmls Web application, then electronically “send” to clients using DocuSign. The client receives an email notification, is authenticated and quickly navigated through the e-signing process.

By extending the integration of DocuSign within flexmls, real estate agents can further simplify the real estate contract signing process, save hours of time each week, eliminate signing errors and accelerate deal close rates. Michael Wurzer, president and CEO of FBS, states:

Our goal at FBS is to help agents complete more transactions and this new time-saving functionality from DocuSign to our Forms system will help in realizing that goal. As the standard in the real estate market, DocuSign improves the speed, accuracy and efficiency of getting contracts signed, and with pre-tagged flxmls Forms, these benefits are further magnified.

Rather than driving across town to get a signature or forcing clients to find a fax machine, real estate professionals use DocuSign to execute agreements with buyers and sellers electronically, eliminating the old process of printing, faxing and waiting for the return fax. With real estate forms signed in minutes, not days, DocuSign real estate professional subscribers achieve higher sales, increase client satisfaction and maintain a competitive edge. Safe and secure, the DocuSign electronic signature process is also easy to use and legally compliant. Dave Thorpe, business development director at DocuSign, shares:

The relationship between the flexmls Web applications and DocuSign is a natural as both services provide real estate professionals with state of the art technology to complete real estate transactions faster and easier. FBS has made it possible for its customers to leverage the power of the DocuSign electronic signature platform directly from their flexmls user interface and receive ongoing support from FBS for maximum convenience.

Want to view a how to video of DocuSign and flexmls Forms?

Electronic Signatures in Real Estate: Doing Real Estate Deals Anywhere, With Mobile
Inman News: DocuSign beefs up mobile capabilities: Users can digitize documents with iPhone camera

…The latest version of DocuSign’s electronic signature management platform offers the ability to markup documents during negotiations, and also includes “designed for mobile” functionality for Apple’s iPhone and iPad and Android mobile devices, the company said today.

DocuSign for iPhone and iPad allows users to access documents from Google Docs, Box.net, and other cloud-based services. Apple iPhone users can digitize paper documents by snapping pictures of them with their phone, allowing them to add “sign here” tabs and collect electronic signatures from their clients.

“E-mail to signature” capabilities allow users to forward documents they receive as e-mail attachments to an e-mail address for conversion into DocuSign “electronic envelopes” that can be signed from anywhere in the world….

Florida Realtor: How To Go Paperless

…”With the introduction of digital signatures, you can now sit at your desk and send out contracts for signature anywhere in the world,” [Kevin] Gallagher notes that with digital signatures – he uses DocuSign – you don’t have to “print documents, make arrangements to meet clients, obtain signatures and forward the documents to the buyer or seller. …

Close it in the Cloud: Electronic Signatures Enables You To Close Deals Entirely in the Cloud
Cloud Computing Journal: DocuSign and Salesforce.com Create Cloud Transactions for Customers

…“Our work with DocuSign is moving the last mile of business transactions, contract signatures, to Cloud 2,” said Kendall Collins, chief marketing officer, salesforce.com. “Bringing together Salesforce CRM and Salesforce Chatter with DocuSign’s e-signature technology will deliver real-time collaboration around contract workflow processes, helping customers close deals entirely in the cloud.”

As demonstrated last week at Cloudforce 2010 in San Jose by salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff and DocuSign’s Tom Gonser, the DocuSign eSignature service offers users the ability to leverage data within Salesforce CRM and is enabled with Salesforce Chatter for real-time visibility and updates. Users can follow others and follow deals as the information is pushed in real-time. Whether it is a contract, acknowledgement or approval requiring one or more signatures, virtually everyone within an organization needs to get a document signed. With DocuSign being Salesforce Chatter-enabled, employees across the entire organization can collaborate during the e-signing process, delivering cost and workflow efficiencies. …

Cloud Computing.Info: DocuSign partners with Salesforce and Box.net

…The whole process is completely web-based, and customers can access the DocuSign platform for document and signatures management through a PC, a tablet or a smartphone.

Last week the company announced an OEM partnership with Salesforce, to integrate the eSignature technology in CRM and the new Chatter service.
The integration with DocuSign will be also available for those customers that will create custom applications on the Salesforce Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) cloud: Force.com

Also last week DocuSign secured a similar partnership with Box.net, a popular storage-as-a-service cloud computing provider in the consumer market.
Box.net goes beyond file sharing and synchronization, offering project collaboration and workflow management for business customers. Box.net customers can now sign all their documents through the eSignature process. …

Electronic Signature: A Technology Trend
VentureBeat: DocuSign adds more tools to make printed contracts obsolete

…Seattle-based DocuSign today announced of the latest update to its electronic signature tools. The big vision, according to founder and chief strategy officer Tom Gonser, is to treat electronic signatures as a platform (yes, tech companies love that word) rather than “just a single e-sign product.”

In other words, DocuSign wants to do more than provide the technology to replace handwritten signatures with electronic ones. Today, for example, it’s revealing new collaborative features. Previously, DocuSign users would send out a document for signature, and the recipient could either sign it or refuse. That doesn’t reflect what is often a more complicated process filled with last-minute changes, and it creates a risk where, in Gonser’s words, customers will say, “Let’s put on the brakes, let’s print it out,” and therefore “fall out of the electronic process.” …

ZDNet: DocuSign launches new tools to entice greater e-signature adoption

…If you’ve ever had to sign your life away to buy or sell a house, take out a loan or finalize a sales agreement, you know what a tedious process it can be to actually sit and sign your name over and over and over again.

What makes it really unfortunate is that there is a better way. And it’s been around for exactly 10 years. It was on June 30, 2000 that then-President Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures in Global National Commerce (ESIGN) Act.

To commemorate the occasion, Docusign, a provider of an e-signature platform, is releasing of Docusign Spring 10, a major upgrade to its service. It’s adding things like voice biometrics as another method of identity confirmation and Agent role, a tool that allows a real estate agent, for example, to manage and review documents for a client and then submit them. …

PC Magazine: DocuSign Releases Updated Version of E-Signature Software

…DocuSign announced the new software as part of its ESIGN customer summit here. The company asked President Bill Clinton to speak about his work with electronic signatures in conjunction with his foundation’s charity work, while Salesforce.com also announced that it had made a strategic investment into DocuSign alongside an existing investment by the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

We’ve come a long way from my parents’ generation, where a fax would have been welcome technology for them, said Gary Thomas, the 2011 vice-president elect of the NAR. …

While sun and sailing are hot this summer, so are eSignatures – you can sign with the fast, complete and trusted electronic signature platform provider.