Advanced Tips for Sending Documents for Signature

Transcript

Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. Welcome to this edition of Acrobat Sign Skill Builder. Before we jump in, I’d like to remind you that this session is being recorded and will be available within 24 hours, right here where you join today. You’ll also receive an email with a link to the recording for on-demand viewing. As always, please make sure to ask any questions in the Q&A pod on the right side of the screen. We’ll have Adobe experts on standby ready to answer. We’ll answer as many questions as possible, but for those that we aren’t able to get to, there are several great resources that you can visit to learn more. We’ve dropped those in the Q&A pod for you to bookmark. We’ll also have a live Q&A after the session. (upbeat music) First, by way of introduction, my name is Weston Romero, Technical Product Evangelist at Adobe. Over the course of the last several years, I’ve had the pleasure of helping a broad range of customers all in pursuit of digitally transforming their document and signature workflows with Adobe Solutions and partner ecosystem. Let’s take a look at what I’ll be showing you today. I’ll show you how to set up multi-signer workflows while touching on how to adjust the routing order, participant roles, and other options for configuring your agreement workflows. Then we’ll look at options available to add a second factor of authentication for identifying your signing participants. We’ll also touch on agreement messaging using message templates, how and where you can attach your documents from, and the supported file types, and then finally, we’ll touch on additional agreement options like setting a reminder frequency and an expiration date for your agreements. I like to start out with an easy poll, what is your experience level with Adobe Acrobat Sign? We’ll start by logging into Acrobat Sign where we are first directed to the homepage. Here we can access the send for signature page from a couple of different places. We can choose the send tab from the menu on top, we can select request signatures, or we can start from library if the document we wish to send for signature is accessible from our Acrobat Sign library. For now, we’ll start from request signatures. Sending a document out for signature is as easy as sending an email. Just like with sending an email, you identify your recipients by their email address, add a subject line, a personal message, and an attachment, which will be the documents you attach requiring approval or signature. Today we’ll take a deeper dive and show you the advanced options available to you when sending your documents for signature with Acrobat Sign, however, please keep in mind that some of the features I show you are not enabled by default, and may require an admin to turn them on. Let’s start from the recipient section where we will go in and define the participants in our workflow. We’ll enter in the email address of Signer Jane, and as I type it out, you’ll see that Acrobat sign remembered it from the last time I entered her address, so that I don’t have to manually type it out each time.

Then I can go in and add an additional participant, I’ll add Rob, where again, we see that Acrobat Sign remembers the email address. Just like that, we have a two participant workflow, and by default, the participants of this workflow will complete their actions in order. Jane will sign first, and then when done, Rob will then be asked to sign next. Let’s say the order doesn’t matter, I can toggle from complete in order to complete in any order, which means both participants will receive an email at the same time asking them to sign and the order that they sign in doesn’t matter, although both are expected to sign before the agreement would be considered complete. I’m now going to add myself where I select Add Me, instead of manually typing my email address, I’m then added as the third signing participant in this workflow. Well, let’s say that me and Rob can sign at the same time, only after Signer Jane has signed. This would be considered a hybrid workflow, and we can achieve this by simply selecting one recipient, dragging and holding it over another, which will allow the participants to complete in parallel. Signer Jane will be asked to sign first, and then Rob and I will receive an email at the same time asking us to sign. Only until we’ve both signed will the agreement be considered complete. We can also add what’s called a recipient group, which allows us to define a group of participants where any of the identified participants in the group can act as the sole signer. Let’s add an email or two to this group I’ve created called legal, both participants I’ve added to this group will receive an email at the same time asking them to sign. However, only one of them will be required to sign off on the agreement to advance the process forward. If one of the participants of the group clicks the signing URL in the email after another group member has signed, they will receive a message letting them know that the agreement has already been signed. Great, let’s now talk about recipient roles. Recipient roles provide the option to expand the role for the agreement recipients beyond just the signer to better match the requirements of the workflow. Acrobat Sign offers the ability to identify your participants by signer, approver, accepter, certified recipient, form filler, and delegator. Signers are required to apply at least one signature to an agreement and is the default recipient role, whereas approvers are not required to sign or interact with any field, and works well for situations where someone needs to okay a document before being sent to a signer. The acceptor role is mechanically the same as the approver role and is appropriate when a recipient needs to acknowledge an acceptance of an agreement without formally approving the content. Certified recipients will either delegate, decline, or acknowledge that the agreement continues down the signature cycle. The form filler role works great when a participant needs to simply fill in form data without signing, and the delegator role is designed for workflows that require a person to make the final judgment on the correct next person that should sign or approve the document. If I choose delegator as the role for Signer Jane, when she receives the document, she can view it, but then define who it is then sent to for signature. We can also define the recipient role for whom Signer Jane delegates the agreement to, whether it be signer, approver, acceptor, certified recipient, or form filler. The recipient role names are also captured and displayed on the audit report to make it clear which role each participant played in the process. You can also have varying roles across your workflow and can mix and match roles accordingly, based on the role the participants in your workflow need to play. Before we move on, I have another poll for you.

Let’s spend some time talking about messaging now. Private messages allow us to add a unique and private message for each participant in the workflow. The private message can only be viewed by the participant it was intended for, and will be displayed in the email that’s delivered requesting action by that participant. Here, I can simply click the conversation bubble and can add a private message for Jane that only she will see during the process. I can add a separate private message for Rob and then a separate one for the legal team. Private messages are separate from the message section below which all participants will see. We just covered the recipient section of the send for signature page, from adjusting the routing order of your participants to using recipient groups and roles to define how participants can interact with the agreement. Now we’re going to take some time and talk about identity authentication which Adobe supports a full range of authentication methods, from single factor email verification to sophisticated two-factor authentication for sensitive document types and processes that may require it. In this example, I will identify two signing participants, we’ll use Rob and Signer Jane.

By default, Acrobat Sign will define the authentication method as email. If adding a second factor of authentication, Acrobat Sign provides the available options here. I’ll select the question mark to give you a better view of all of the options available. Email is where you simply identify the signing participants by their email address, which requires the participant to have access to the associated inbox to receive, view, and sign the agreement. Password simply requires a sender to define a password that the signer will need to know in order to unlock and view the agreement. Phone authentication allows the signer to receive a one time code through SMS or voice call which requires the sender to know the phone number of the signing participant before sending. Knowledge based authentication, or KBA, only available in the US, requires signers to provide a few key pieces of information and will then be provided a list of questions that only they should be able to answer. Acrobat Sign Authentication simply asks the signer to log into their Acrobat sign account before viewing and signing the agreement, which is great for internal uses.

And government ID uses a government issued ID, such as driver’s license or passport that is scanned using the signer’s mobile device, while leveraging algorithms to detect the validity of the ID before presenting the document to be signed. Keep in mind that phone, KBA, and government ID are considered premium options and are not enabled by default. Let’s put some of these authentication methods to the test now, which we’ll start by entering a password for our test signer. We might then communicate a hint to the signer by using the private message function, or we could communicate the password through a means outside of Acrobat Sign. Next, let’s look at using phone authentication for Jane. We’ll enter in a phone number for her and show you how she uses the one time code delivered to her through SMS to unlock the document to sign it. Now we have our two signer workflow where we will capture a form of verification from each participant, so let’s go ahead and send this agreement for signature and take a look at the signer’s experience when interacting with the selected forms of authentication. Starting from our first signers perspective, Rob, he receives an email where he has access to the URL to review and sign the document, alongside the private message that only he can see, which includes a hint to the password he needs to unlock the document. Once the link is opened, Rob is asked to enter in the password. If he’s unsure of the password needed, there’s a note here for him to contact the sender of this agreement. Rob will enter a password and select okay.

The password is then verified and only when successfully entered will he be able to view and sign the agreement.

From Signer Jane’s perspective, the second signer in the workflow, she receives an email asking her to sign, just as Rob had. She clicks the URL to review and sign the agreement but is first challenged to enter in a code that can be sent to her through SMS or read to her in a phone call. She selects send code, copies the code from the text message, and then pastes it in Acrobat sign where it’s then verified. Once successful, she’ll be able to view and sign the document. We just went over the identity authentication options available to you in Acrobat Sign, and even went as far as showing you a couple of examples in action. It’s time for a quick poll. We appreciate your participation and your responses.

We’re now going to take a closer look at agreement messaging, supported file attachments, and additional sending options such as setting a reminder frequency and an expiration for the agreement. We’ll start by giving our agreement a name, something like NDA for Rob, and then choose a message from a list of canned templates. This helps streamline the process for the sender so that they don’t have to type a message each time. In this example, we can choose from NDA or sales order and hovering over each option allows us to see the message that will be applied if selected. On top of adding and customizing message templates for senders, there’s also settings available to admins to adjust if the sender can customize the message, if not adding their own message altogether. We’ll choose NDA in this example. Onto the file section, you have a number of options in terms of how and where you can add files from. You can attach your document files from your computer, you can access your documents from your Acrobat Sign Library by choosing recent templates, which will show you all of the document templates that have been recently used. Templates will show you all document templates you and others have uploaded and shared. You also have the ability to choose your files from cloud storage options, including Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive. Simply log in with the credentials of the desired cloud provider and then access the files you need directly from Acrobat Sign. Acrobat Sign supports many file attachment types including PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Text, Graphic, and HTML files. I’ll choose a Word file that I have stored locally on my computer in this example We could also add additional files if needed, and Acrobat Sign will automatically combine the files for a single and seamless viewing experience for the signer.

Great, the document has been attached, we now have our agreement name, message, and our file. Onto additional options, which give us the ability to do more with our agreements such as password protecting the fully signed PDF. Password protect is different from password authentication. Password protect is applied to the fully signed PDF when all signers are finished. This will require anyone with a copy of the signed PDF to know the password in order to view it. Completion deadline allows you to set the amount of days before your agreement expires, and as you can see here, if we set six days to complete, it will automatically calculate the date that the agreement will expire on. If an agreement reaches an expiration date, it will automatically be placed in a canceled state and notify the concerned participants. The set reminder option allows you to define a reminder frequency for the agreement before sending it for signature. You can set the frequency to be every day, week, business day, other day, third, or fifth day. However, if you don’t set a reminder here, you can always go back to the manage page after the agreement has been sent and set a reminder from there. Automatic reminders is another option that can be enabled by group and account admins. Finally, we can set the recipient language for our signing participants, which Acrobat Sign has 34 languages available to choose from. Keep in mind, adjusting the recipient language will only adjust it in places where the signer is interacting with the interface, Acrobat Sign does not convert the language of your agreement message or documents. Great, we just looked at agreement messaging, file attachments, and additional agreement options available to you for customizing your Acrobat Sign agreement workflows. The last thing we’ll look at is checking the box that says preview and add signature fields. This allows us to navigate to the next page where we’ll then be able to place form fields on our document. Here we can leverage Adobe’s artificial intelligence agent, Adobe Sensei, which will automatically detect and place Acrobat Sign form fields in their respective locations on the document. On this document, we can see where form fields would need to be placed. Pressing this button will then automatically place the fields for us. Adobe Sensei, even went as far as detecting the signature, full name, and date fields. In the top right-hand corner, we see the involved participants, and can toggle from one to another to assign fields to each.

In the right-hand pane, we see a list of additional fields that we can drag and drop onto our documents, including signature fields, signer info fields, data fields, transaction, and payment fields. Down here in the right-hand corner, we can reset the fields and start over if needed, or we can save the document as a template if we want to reuse it at a later point.

At last, we’re ready to send the agreement out for signature to our signing participants. Today, we went over advanced tips for sending documents for signature with Acrobat Sign, we set up a multi participant workflow, and showed you how to use recipient roles, recipient groups, and private messages. We also went over all of the identity authentication options available for identifying your signing participants. Finally, we went over agreement messaging, how and where you can add file attachments from, and additional options, like setting a reminder frequency and expiration date for your agreements. I have one last poll for you, I’d love to know if you’ve learned something new from today’s session.

As a reminder, this session has been recorded and will be available within 24 hours, right here where you join today. You’ll also receive an email with a link to the recording for on-demand viewing. We’ll also have a live Q&A after the session. Before I let you go today, let me point out a few resources you can bookmark to help you find answers to any questions we weren’t able to get to today. We’ve dropped those links in the Q&A pod. The first is the Adobe Help Center where you’ll find user guides, tutorials, and can use the search function to find what you are looking for. Next is the Adobe Experience League, here you can access a vast library of learning content and courses, get personalized recommendations, and connect with fellow learners. The Acrobat Sign Support Community is another resource where you can view past discussions, join current ones, or start your own. These monthly skill builder webinars are a great place to learn new skills or brush up on existing. You can register for future events and watch past webinars on demand. And finally, the Acrobat Sign Resource Hub is a one stop shop for everything Acrobat Sign. It includes tips and tricks, tutorials, customer stories, the latest integrations, and more. We’re always updating and adding to it, so be sure to check back frequently. Thanks for joining, I’m Weston Romero, and this has been another session of Adobe Acrobat Sign Skill Builder. Happy sending, happy signing. (upbeat music)