Templates: The ability to create pre-defined documents with all ‘sign-here’ electronic signature and initial tabs for users who often send the same contract or agreement to different signers provides a dramatic time savings by automating the repetitive task of placing electronic signature and initial tabs. Once you’ve created and saved a template, you never have to place the tabs when sending that same type of document.

Intelligent Document Recognition™  (IDR): This proprietary feature analyzes documents loaded into the DocuSign system and automatically applies all ‘sign-here’ and other data tabs based on pre-defined customer templates. This innovation provides a dramatic time savings for power users who often send the same contract or agreement for signature multiple times a day, or for complex contracts.

Electronic Signature Personalization: In 2009, DocuSign delivered the only online electronic signature experience that offers signers the ability to create and save their own unique electronic signature. Signers now have the ability to load an exact image of their handwritten signature for use as part of their DocuSign e-signature, creating an even more personalized electronic signing process.

Support for Additional Document Formats: For even more time savings, DocuSign saved its customers an extra step every time they upload documents because they do not have to convert documents to PDF. DocuSign automatically provides real-time conversion of a broad range of document formats to secure PDFs on the fly.

Improved In-person Signing Experience: Electronic contract execution is becoming more common during in-person signings with multiple signers – especially for real estate, insurance and financial services customers. Using the new in-person signing process, DocuSign introduces a ‘Signing Host’ who acts much like a notary, authenticating the signers and administering the process.

I know I said I’d share the Top 10 ESIGN features of 2009 and for those of you who are counting along, we’ve only covered five. Come back tomorrow for the final five ESIGN features of 2009… **Update** Click Here for the final five ESIGN features of 2009

By including paperless processes in your business, you can reduce, if not eliminate, the piles of paper generated from faxing documents back and forth. This is green and more importantly, it saves you TIME.

DocuSign electronic signature also offers features designed to save you even more time:

DocuSign integrates with all of the major forms providers, meaning that you can continue to create your documents using the software you’re already familiar with. For example, DocuSign is also fully integrated with zipForm 6 – take a look at the video below:

DocuSign will also send courtesy copies to anyone else who needs a copy of your signed documents. Simply include the name, email address and designate them as a “CC” recipient when you’re preparing your documents for signature. This saves you even more time, by eliminating the need to manually download signed documents, attach them to an email and forward them to the other agent on the transaction.

With DocuSign, you can take advantage of time saving features such as templates and Intelligent Document Recognition (IDR). Once you’ve created a template by marking your documents for e-signature and initials for a role recipient, the next time you need to send a the same type of document, IDR will propose a template if it detects a match. You select the template and the e-signature and initial tabs will be automatically applied.

During this busy holiday season as well as year round, these time-saving tips mean that you have more time to focus on what you want, instead of chasing paper back and forth.

Have other tips, tricks or questions? Let us know in the comments!

Templates and IDR

Templates enable you to save recipient, tab and message information for reuse on new DocuSign envelopes.

Steps for Creating a Electronic Contract Template:

1. Click the new template button
2. Enter a name for your template
3. Browse for and upload documents
4. Enter a role name (role recipient) so you do not have to enter the email address and name for your signers as they will change as you send new documents
5. Enter your signers’ information
6. Click the lock check box to prevent other template users from editing the recipient information
7. Enter your message
8. Tab the document and make sure that the correct signer is highlighted as you place the tabs
9. Use the radio buttons to group the choices for your signers
10. Adjust the size of the text boxes for the documents

Once you’re done, click save, and you have a template you can use when you send a standard form document.

When you upload a document, IDR will propose a template if it detects a match. Select the appropriate template and your signature and initial tabs will be automatically applied – no more manual tabbing for your clients’ signature or initials.

Template Authoring Tips

Interested in some tips to help you create your templates correctly?

Templates may only contain one role recipient: Templates may contain multiple permanent / named recipients (such as yourself, if you must sign each time) but may only contain one role recipient.

The role recipient must be sequenced first: Other permanent / named recipients in the template may also be sequenced first, but the role recipient must be sequenced first.

The role recipient must be a signer: Other permanent / named recipients in the template may be signers, certified delivery recipients or carbon copy recipients, but the role recipient must be a signer.

Name or email address: The role recipient must not have a name or email address specified in the template.

Authentication methods: The role recipient and permanent / named recipients may be assigned access code and / or ID check authentication methods.

Are you interested in templates and ready to save even more time with electronic signature from DocuSign? Click here for more information about DocuSign Professional and DocuSign Professional Advanced.

Do you have more questions about templates? Let us know in the comments!

1. Just Use It! DocuSign can only save you time if you use it. If you’re on the fence about trying it, DocuSign Lite is one way to try electronic signature. It’s free and you can use it from LOOP to PDF, iGoogle gadget, Mozilla Firefox plug-in, or the DocuSign home page. If you’re ready for more features, you can sign up for DocuSign – there’s a 30 day free trial, so you can try the more robust features, receive the DocuSign Certificate of Signing and all the other benefits at no risk to you.

2. Take advantage of workflow. Workflow rules are one of the greatest time saving benefits of DocuSign. For example, if you need to get your clients’ signatures before sending the documents on to the other agent, your process looks like this:

1. Upload documents to DocuSign.
2. Tag the documents for signatures and initials with stick-e-tabs, which ensure that no signatures or initials will be missing.
3. Use Sequential Signing to make sure that your clients eSign in the order you want them to eSign in.
4. CC the other agent on the transaction so that he or she will automatically get the signed and completed documents once your clients have all signed.

If you were using a non-eSign process, your process might look like this:

1. Email the documents to your clients.
2. Your clients have to print and sign the documents.
3. Your clients have to fax the documents back to you.
4. You wait for the documents until they come through the fax machine.
5. You double check to make sure all the signatures and initials are there. If any are missing, you contact your client to get the signatures or initials.
6. You wait for those pages to come back.
7. You scan the signed documents or make copies for your files.
8. You fax the papers to the other agent in the transaction to move the deal along.

With DocuSign’s workflow capabilities, you don’t have to wait near a fax machine. You can set up DocuSign to notify your clients to eSign in the order you want them signed and once your clients have signed, DocuSign will even get the documents to the other agent in the transaction, so you don’t have to!

3. Upgrade from DocuSign Professional Standard to DocuSign Professional Advanced. If you tend to create a lot of the same types of documents for your clients to sign, an upgrade to the advanced version can cut your document creation time down to as little as two minutes.

Why? DocuSign Professional Advanced has additional functionality such as templates and Intelligent Document Recognition (IDR) which enables you to save pretagged documents so you don’t have to place the stick-e-tabs every single time you create a set of documents for your clients.

IDR simplifies it further by learning the documents you use and applying pre-defined custom document workflows, signature and initial locations to your contracts, even if they are complex, multipart contracts. This is based on your document signing workflow and business rules.

If you’re ready to save some serious time, I encourage you to check out DocuSign. If you’ve been using DocuSign, what are some time saving tips you’ve discovered? Please do share them with us in the comments!

He uses two DocuSign features: Templates and Intelligent Document Recognition (IDR) to reduce the time for document creation from 20 minutes to TWO. Two minutes is about how long you should spend brushing your teeth!

Templates: You can take frequently used documents, like purchase agreements, and pre-define all of the locations on the agreement where recipients need to sign or initial. You specify a “role” for each signer (Buyer 1, Buyer 2, Buyer’s Agent, Seller 1…) and drag and drop the stick-e-tabs on the agreement. Once you’ve created a template, you can use it again, when you have a similar transaction. Take a look at our how-to for template creation.

IDR: You can use IDR to automatically recognize a certain document by looking for document attributes. For example, if you wanted DocuSign to recognize a document as a “real estate purchase contract” you can use the IDR tool to draw a box around section(s) of the document, such as a title or other unique identifier.

Once you’ve created your templates and used the IDR tool to help DocuSign identify your documents, you can prepare offers by uploading the individual documents for the offer. IDR will ask if you want to apply various templates as it detects the documents. All you have to do is specify the names and emails for each party of the transaction and press “send.”

If you “cc” the other party’s agent, their agent will receive a secure link to the completed documents after your clients have signed. These documents will be clear and easy to read because they haven’t been faxed back and forth!

Click to read Aaron’s original post and view his slideshow of the entire process, from template creation to signing.

To try DocuSign with a risk-free 30 day money back guarantee, click here and pretty soon, the amount of time you’ll take to create documents will be about the amount of time it takes you to brush your teeth!

*Note the DocuSign plan, DocuSign Professional for Individual Users Advanced Plan, that supports templates and IDR start at $34.95/month. However, that is less expensive than a mobile broadband plan (~$70.00/month with Verizon)

The demand for on-demand electronic signature and online contract execution continues to grow in 2009. DocuSign has hit some tremendous milestones as we help our customers completely replace the expensive and inefficient processes of printing, transporting, signing, tracking, storing paper contracts and capturing business data.

Our customers report:

• Immediately lowering operating costs up to 80%,
• Eliminating Not-In-Good-Order (NIGO) rates,
• Reducing contract cycle times from 24 days to 24 hours or fewer.

DocuSign has:

• Over 25 million signature events
• 56% increase in use of our electronic signature and electronic contract execution (ECE) services from Q4′08
• 300% growth over Q1′08

DocuSign version 9.1 offers significant new and unique features, and continues to simplify the user experience in order to further accelerate the widespread adoption of electronic signatures and ECE. New features include:

• Electronic Signature Personalization—DocuSign delivers the only online electronic signature experience that offers signers the ability to create and save their own unique electronic signature.  With this new release, DocuSign now offers signers the ability to load an exact image of their handwritten signature for use as part of their DocuSign e-signature, creating an even more personalized process.
• Simple and Powerful Sending—The new experience of sending documents for electronic signature is even more familiar, easier and more powerful. Using the familiar paradigm of drafting an email, a single screen guides the user through the simple process of sending documents for signature.
• Intelligent Document Recognition™ (IDR)—The proprietary new feature analyzes documents loaded into the DocuSign system and automatically applies all ‘sign-here’ and other data tabs based on pre-defined customer workflows. This innovation is a dramatic time savings for power users that often send the same contract or agreement for signature multiple times a day, or for complex contracts.
• Support for Additional Document Formats—The new service now automatically provides real-time conversion of a broad range of document formats to secure PDFs on the fly.  Customers no longer need to convert documents to PDF, saving a step in the process.
• Improved In-person Signing Experience—Electronic contract execution is becoming more common during in-person signings with multiple signers—especially for real estate, insurance and financial services customers. Using the new in-person signing process, DocuSign introduces a ‘Signing Host’ who acts much like a notary, authenticating the signers and administering the process.

We recently unveiled the new electronic signature and contract execution capabilities available in DocuSign Version 9.1 at our Executive Customer Council (ECC) in Washington D.C. DocuSign’s ECC represents many of the world’s largest and most successful companies, including Fortune 500 customers and partners from financial services, insurance, telecommunications, supply chain, procurement, technology, manufacturing, travel and real estate.

Ariba, the world’s largest supplier of automated supply chain software and services, and one of the key strategic partners for DocuSign, was introduced to Version 9.1 at DocuSign’s ECC. Last month, we announced a strategic partnership with Ariba, the world’s largest supplier of automated supply chain software and services, to revolutionize the entire contract execution process by integrating DocuSign Version 9.1 within Ariba’s platform.

“With the volume and complexity of enterprise contracts on the rise, no company can afford delays in contract execution or unauditable offline procedures. Adding DocuSign’s electronic signature capabilities to Ariba Contract Management enables completely paperless contract execution and a fully automated contract lifecycle,” said Tim Minahan, chief marketing officer at Ariba. “The combination of Ariba and DocuSign Version 9.1 raises the standard for security and visibility into arguably the most critical step in closing your business agreements–the final signature.”

Tom Gonser, our founder and VP, Product Strategy, shares these words:

We have a customer-oriented culture which guides our development and new product delivery.  DocuSign’s latest release is a mature SaaS product that reinforces DocuSign’s position as the market leader and is a complete solution for eliminating the manual processing of paper contracts and forms. By focusing on cutting operational costs, accelerating revenue, and immediately impacting efficiency and profitability, our customers are driving tremendous business results for DocuSign.

The ability of a digital or computer-controlled to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience.

In essence, AI seeks to duplicate tasks that require a human being. When applied to preparing Documents for the signature process, AI might feel a little like my Dad’s assistant from 1972.

The new “Intelligent Document Recognition” (IDR) capability of DocuSign Pro 2.0 has been a very interesting foray into the application of AI to the task of preparing documents for signature – creating an “assistant” capable of preparing your documents for you.

As some know, DocuSign has a very powerful feature called “Signing Workflow Templates.” These templates describe the signing process that should be applied to a document. Signing Workflow Templates include everything about the signing workflow – who is to sign (buyer, seller), where they are to sign, initial, or provide data, how they should authenticate, what sequence should be followed, etc. They are incredibly powerful because they allow a sender of a document to have the benefit of standardizing on a workflow for signing by simply applying a template to a document when they go to send it. All the sender has to do is apply the right template. This gives the power of exact signature placement, with “one click” simplicity. The only challenge is selecting the proper template to apply.

Enter AI. (and the word “automagically”)

With the release of DocuSign Pro 2.0, these signing templates are automagically applied to documents on the fly, and these templates are created automagically on the fly. The system literally learns the documents you send for signature, where you place signatures, what sort of recipients you use, etc. Once it learns this, it automatically begins to place your “sign here” tabs, and prepares your documents for you…just like my Dad’s assistant in 1972.

The amazing part – how it works

The way IDR works is very similar to the way a human being decides which document is being presented. It ‘looks at it’. It literally does the same thing a human does –- it reads the first few sentences of the document, it looks for pictures and other tell-tale signs, and decides if it has seen it before. If it has, it knows exactly where to put your signature tabs, and what roles will be signing.

More amazing

DocuSign Pro 2.0 is even capable of “looking at pictures.” My favorite demo involves two documents that have nothing but pictures. Document One is a picture of a golf course, Document Two is a picture of the Columbia River. From a distance, a human could not tell the difference, DocuSign Pro’s “Document Assistant” can reliably differentiate the two images without a problem.

Even more amazing

Some “line of business applications” used by our customers actually create PDF documents on the fly which are actually composed of multiple documents. This poses a unique challenge – how to tell what documents are inside the single file, and then determining if any of these documents are recognized. Well, our Document Prep Assistant is able to do this as well. It literally recognizes that there are multiple documents inside one file, and can place signatures and assign roles to the documents inside properly –- no matter what order these documents may appear.

The experience of sending documents for signature using DocuSign Pro now feels a lot like you have your own assistant looking over your shoulder helping you work faster and work smarter.