Introducing the Notary API

Last March, we announced the acquisition of LiveOak Technologies. In doing so, we made possible the marriage of its audio-visual technology with Docusign eSignature. Today, we are pleased to announce limited availability for Docusign Notary, which enables our customers to easily integrate remote online notarization (RON) into existing eSignature workflows. In coordination with this release, we are also excited to announce the Docusign Notary API, which is officially available in closed beta. 

The Docusign Notary API enables your organization to manage how you conduct remote online notarizations. To do this, you invite notaries public to your organization’s notary pool, which lists them for easy inclusion in witnessing and electronic journaling tasks later. In your eSignature workflow, you can create an envelope with the notary public as a new recipient type. Documents are signed (virtually) in the presence of a notary public and are thus deemed notarized, demonstrating that the signer’s identity was verified, that the signature was witnessed, and that the documents were voluntarily executed.

Before general availability, we would love to hear from you and gather feedback on how you’d use the Notary API. What would your use case look like? How could we make it easier to use? Is there something you need that’s not addressed in our documentation? Please let us know your needs by completing the feedback form. 

The new Notary API provides a set of services specific to notarization. Here are the features I am most excited to share with you: 

Manage your pool of notaries public 

Use the Notary API to organize and separate your organization’s notaries public into an easy-to-manage group called a pool.

Manage notaries

Add or remove notaries public from your organization to manage who can perform RON acts in supported states.

Check commission information 

Retrieve specific commission information from your notaries public, such as jurisdiction.

I’ve saved the best for last. Because Notary is so closely integrated with eSignature, we’ve added new, notary-specific functionality to the eSignature API as well. 

Create an envelope with a new notary group recipient type

In your eSignature workflow, add this new recipient type to facilitate a RON session with a digital signature and tag with a notarization seal. 

Dynamically redirect signers 

Create and send envelopes and retrieve session links so you can redirect signers dynamically through the RON session.

Retrieve notarized agreements 

Following the RON session, retrieve the signed and notarized agreement with the Certificate of Completion.

During this closed beta period, the Docusign Developer Center will be equipped with API 101 guides, how-tos, and the Notary API Reference to best support your experimentation. 

If you’re interested in getting access to the API or want us to consider specific functionality, please fill out the feedback form. Our product management team will let you know when the API is generally available. 

Cheers, 

Matthew Roknich

Associate Product Manager