EchoSign Tips and Tricks

New: Personalize and Socialize your Message to Signers on the Sign Page

We recently added a subtle but great way for Team, Enterprise and Global customers to further personalize the signing experience for your end customers.

Now, you can put a personalized message to your signers / customers on the sign page, and further add links to your company's social media sites if desired (i.e., your Facebook, Google+, and Twitter accounts).

If you turn on Signer Messaging, the right side of the post-signing message on the e-sign page can then say whatever you want (and link to any page you want), like this:

 

 

EchoSign Team, Global and Enterprise customers can enable this feature on the Account tab, under Account Settings / Signer Messaging

 

 

 

Send Docs for Signature from DropBox, Box, + Other Apps on your iPad or iPhone With "Open In ... EchoSign"

EchoSign's iPad/iPhone app utilitzes the iOS "Open In" functionality to allow you to open a document from most other applications that have documents and contracts in them -- including DropBox and Box(.net) and others -- and send them out for signature via EchoSign's iOS app in one click.

How?  Just install the EchoSign iPad/iPhone app from the AppStore.  Then hit "Open In" in any app that supports it, and EchoSign will be a pre-installed option.   It will then open up, automatically attached, in the EchoSign iPad/iPhone app.

1,000,000,000 is Cool: Adobe Adds Native EchoSign Integration to the 1 Billion Users of Adobe Reader Today

Big news for EchoSign today – Adobe has added a new Sign button and native EchoSign integration for the 1,000,000,000 (that’s 1 billion J) users of Adobe Reader.

 Now, you can:

(1)  Sign any document yourself in Adobe Reader for free – with the new Sign button in Reader

(2)  Send it out for signature through EchoSign

 All in one click.

 Super easy, super powerful, super free, super cool.

 And this is just the start.  Look for even more functionality in Q2, including the full EchoSign user experience embedded in Reader.  And our Mobile Reader integration coming soon is very cool as well.

 

 

 

EchoSign iPhone / iPad App up on the Apple Appstore

In what is just phase 1 of a much larger initiative, last night our first iOS-native app went live on the AppStore.   Try it now for free - it works with any type of EchoSign account, though certain certain accounts' administrators may limit access.

Historically we've been very browser or 'HTML5' focused but now we're ready to do things in mobile that enable functionality beyond the browser.

In the first version of the app, you're able to:

• Send documents from signature from your document library or other iOS sources
• Do 'in person' signing from the app to present a document for face-to-face signing
• Check the status and audit trail of any document
• Countersign and more without ever having to go to www.echosign.com
• Push signed contracts into Salesforce (contact your client success manager to enable)
• And more

But this is just a start.  Look for a lot more in the coming months, as well as full integration with Adobe's separate Mobile PDF Reader app in early 2012, which will enable unique and extremely powerful ways to fill, sign and manage your documents automatically from any PDF or other doc you open on an iOS or Android device.  Over time, we expect the EchoSign app to be for our power users (you), and EchoSign inside of Reader (given that 1,000,000,000 people use Reader and Mobile Reader - rather more than EchoSign standalone) to be more focused on consumers and lower volume users.  But we shall see.

Sneak Peak: EchoSign Comes to 1,000,000,000 Users of Adobe Reader in Full Force in January

Since EchoSign became part of Adobe in July, many of you have asked "Great.  What's in it for me?" Fair enough.

Certain benefits were almost immediate.  We now have a $2,000,000,000+ balance sheet backing us, meaning vendor risk has been completely eliminated in the e-signature space for the first time.  We've added some quick first-step integrations, including the use of Adobe IDs for Single Sign On, as well as a basic link to EchoSign in Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat.  And, as you'll see in the coming months, Adobe has deployed many more resources to support EchoSign.  Our team will soon have doubled in size, especially engineering and product, so we'll get more features and functionality out to you even faster.

But back to those integrations.  We've just gotten started.  Adobe invented the PDF, and over 1 billion copies of Reader have been installed on PCs and mobile devices worldwide.  You'll begin to see Reader evolve in Q1 into a device that furthers our vision of web contracts.  Why does Reader matter?  Because contracts live as PDFs -- it's how we safely collaborate and share them.  And PDFs are opened in Reader.  So the reality is, Reader is the natural place to start the contracting process for the vast majority of contracts - it's the native app you open them in in the first place.

The Reader integration will roll forward in several stages.  In Q1, you'll see two important pieces of EchoSign inside of Adobe Reader -- all in one simple click, with a new button in Reader - "Sign".

 First, you'll be able to fill in and sign any document you open in Reader, period.  For free.  Second, you'll then be able to take any document in Reader, whether you've signed it yourself or not, and send it out for e-signature via EchoSign, in one click.

PDF is the language of contracts and contract collaboration.  Reader + EchoSign = web contracts for everyone, everywhere, every-how.

And after this huge update for Reader, we've got a lot more planned.  Imagine much of the entire EchoSign experience inside of Reader, running at turbocharged native speed.  Imagine EchoSign fully integrated inside of Mobile Reader too - already one of the Top 5 most popular mobile apps.  Imagine just for a little while longer.  We're building it all for you.

It's going to be great.

#thePowerofAdobe

Optional Initials and Signatures

Initials and Signatures can now be optional (vs. mandatory in EchoSign).

Just uncheck 'Required' on the drag-and-drop page (or for advanced users of text tags, see the updated text tags for optional signatures and initials).

 

 

Send Page. More Simple.

Tonight we've pushed out a series of new features we'll highlight on the tips blog.

The first is that we've enabled even more simplification (and customization) of the Send page.  

• Don't need Fax Signatures?  Get rid of them.

• Want to always preview documents or position signatures before you send?  Make it default.  Or required.

• Want to only grab documents from Google Docs, or the EchoSign Library, or DropBox?  No problem.  Narrow the choices, make it simpler.

• And now you can even skip an entire step in logging into EchoSign, by going straight from log-in to the Send tab instead of Home first.   So you're sending one click faster.

And more.

Just click on "Customize this page" on Send to explore the options here.

And Simplify.

EchoSign Doubles in 30 Days

Phase 1 of our product integrations with Adobe rolled out during September with a basic, but integrated, Send for Signature function inside of Adobe Reader.  This update is free and is being pushed out in phases "over the air" to new and existing Reader users.

The learning?  After 2 weeks, this first phase has already doubled the rate of our new EchoSign user sign-ups.  Boom.

This is just the start.  We believe, and have always believed since our full launch on January 1, 2006, in bringing e-signatures to every business, anywhere, of any size.  That includes providing everything from the richest set of functionality for our Fortune 500 and Global 2000 customers ... all the way to a 5+ year commitment to a true free and freemium model for our small business customers.

Look for much, much more in the coming months.  We're just getting started.

Web Signatures for All.

#ThePowerOfAdobe

How Facebook, Groupon and Pandora Use EchoSign

At Salesforce's Dreamforce 2011 event we hosted what we believe to have been the most star-studded session: three of the web's titans and true innovators -- Facebook, Groupon and Pandora -- speaking on how they use EchoSign from Adobe to automate their signature and contracting process in the Cloud.

Facebook, Groupon and Pandora have all grown multi-billion dollar businesses in just a few years.   They've compressed and accelerated their businesses processes at a scale that dwarfs the rest of us -- and gleaned learnings faster than the average company rolls out a single new product releases.

All three web leaders rely on EchoSign to automate their sales teams and web contracting processes, and even more than that, to make contracting with their customers a truly social experience.  One that closes deals in a win-win way in minutes and even in real-time, that is 100% web-based, from collaboration to contract creation to signature and management and tracking.

The learnings are below:

How Facebook, Groupon and Pandora use EchoSign E-Signature from Adobe

View more presentations from Echo Sign

Your Thoughts on Our New Design Appreciated - Please Vote

As of today. we're 60 days into to our integration with Adobe, and we're done a lot.  Launched our first integration into Adobe Reader.  Dramatically expanded our UK and EMEA offices.  And been named a Wave Leader by Forrester.  All this week.

One of of the next items on our list is a mild facelift of the website.  We'd appreciate your feedback.

Our goals are to (x) integrate better with Adobe products and design, (y) move away from some of the dated (but battle proven) design principals in EchoSign, (z) while maintaining our hallmark ease-of-use and what we believe is the 'friendliness' of our app.  We don't do training, and we're extremely proud of that fact.  We don't want to lose that.

We have three variants/candidates plus the standby candidate of 'do nothing'.  Please let us know what you think by voting below or detailed comments below or via email.

Please click on each of the new designs below to see them larger and click here to vote!

* New EchoSign A:

* New EchoSign B:

* or Just Stick With Good Old EchoSign:

 

EchoSign Global Adds Full Sender Localization - Send, Author, and Sign in Almost Any Language Across the Globe

18 mos. ago we launched EchoSign Global edition which fully localized the e-signing experience in over 20 languages.

Now we've taken it to the next level and fully localized the sending experience as well.

Because it's not really a global solution if your reps are stuck with an English-only interface.

It's live now for all EchoSign Global Customers.  You can set the sending language on the Account tab, or change it on any page - Send, Author, Sign, etc.

Tell Us the Adobe Integrations You Want to See and Use

Now that EchoSign is formally part of Adobe, the creators of PDF and digital documents, we've already got a number of integrations under way.  The first you'll see is inside of Adobe Reader, already installed on 500,000,000 desktops, which is coming soon.  Acrobat, LiveCycle, and more will follow.

Let us know what you want to see, and how you want to use EchoSign inside of Adobe -- and where it would benefit you.   Send us your thoughts, add to http://ideas.echosign.com, or comment here.  And we'll get on it. 

Great News! Adobe Acquires EchoSign

We're extremely pleased to announce that EchoSign is now part of the Acrobat family -- Adobe has acquired EchoSign.

"Together, our aim is to make electronic signatures the standard way for people to sign documents and automate contracting.

Adobe's PDF solutions and document exchange services platform have helped organizations turn inefficient, paper-based workflows – like overnight envelopes – into streamlined electronic ones.

The EchoSign solution will be integrated with Adobe’s other document services including SendNow for managed file transfer, FormsCentral for form creation and CreatePDF for online PDF creation.

With Adobe as your partner, you can look forward to ongoing innovation in electronic signatures and web-based contracts.We thank you for using the EchoSign service and sincerely appreciate your business. Together, we are excited to help shape the future of web-based contracting across businesses around the world."

Jason Lemkin, CEO EchoSign

Kevin M. Lynch, VP & GM Acrobat

 

Peruse EchoApps to Find Dozens of Amazing EchoSign Integrations

We've recently expanded our EchoApps listing of leading applications that integrate with, or have been integrated into or inside of, EchoSign.

There are over 20 leaders including SAP, Salesforce, NetSuite, SugarCRM, Google Apps, DropBox, Box.net, Xobni, Evernote and many more.  You can find the EchoApps link at the bottom of any EchoSign.com page, or right here.

We'll keep adding more.  And they are almost all free or included with various EchoSign editions. 

 

Shrink / Dynamically Size the Signature Line

A simple option we added in our Summer '11 release is the option to dynamically shrink the automatic blue signature line EchoSign adds under your signature. If you enable this option, the signature line will be automatically re-sized to match the 'length' of the signature:

 

This can work much better in forms such as Real Estate and Tax forms where there is limited space for a signature line.

In addition, the blue signature line can be removed entirely if desired by unchecking 'Use well-formatted signatures and initials".

Just make the change on the Account tab under Signature Preferences.  For Enterprise accounts, the change can only be made by your admin.

 

EchoSign-for-NetSuite 2.0 Launches: In-Person Signing, Global, Deadlines and More

We're pleased to have offically launched EchoSign-for-NetSuite 2.0 today on the SuiteApp.  Release notes are below, and new features and enhancements include:

New Features:

• Hosted Signing - sign in person, right on your iPad or other tablet!
• Signing Deadlines
• Global - sign in 20+ languages, including Chinese, Korean, Japanese, etc.

Plus:

• Cancel Agreement button
• Signed documents are stored in the File Cabinet of the Customer or Transaction record they came from
• Auto Attach Transaction PDF setting to control whether the first document is a PDF version of the Transaction record it came from

 

There is no additional cost to use NetSuite's EchoSign integration for EchoSign Enterprise and Global customers.

 

EchoSign Electronic Signature for NetSuite v2.0

View more presentations from Echo Sign.

EchoSign Summer '11 Release Launches: Collaborate in the Cloud

Tonight EchoSign will be under scheduled maintenance from 8-10pm PST to launch our big Summer '11 release. A summary is below. Key features include collaboration and tracked changes, SAML, richer HTML forms, and many advanced user management tools.

EchoSign Summer 2011 Release

View more presentations from Echo Sign.

E-Sign Right Inside of Outlook with Xobni + EchoSign

 

We've just launched a terrific widget/integration together with our customer Xobni that will save you several steps if you countersign a lot of documents.

If you install Xobni (which is free) and add the free EchoSign gadget, you'll now be able to e-sign any EchoSign documents sent to you right inside of the "Please E-sign" email in Outlook -- without even having to click and go to the EchoSign website:

It's pretty slick and again, it's free.

If you already use Xobni, you may just add the EchoSign gadget here.

If you don't have Xobni, and want to e-sign right inside of Outlook:

• Install Xobni here for free (it will take a minute as it indexes your Outlook)
• Then, add the EchoSign Xobni gadget (this only takes seconds)

Note that you need to select 'Show at the bottom of the Message Window" in Customize Gadgets in the Xobni Outlook plug in to see the contracts to e-sign.  This may or may not be turned on already in your Xobni account:

In fact, now if you wish, by using both the Xobni EchoSign gadget for signing, and the EchoSign Outlook Send integration for sending, you can send and sign 100% entirely inside of Outlook, without ever needing to go to the EchoSign website.

Integrated SAML Support

In EchoSign's upcoming Summer release, we will formally role out full, built-in support for SAML user authentication for all our Enterprise and Global customers.

If you use SAML in your enterprise and would like to confirm automated integration with EchoSign's implementation, please let us know.  Just reach our to your customer success manager or EchoSign support.

 

 

Enabling Collaboration and Signer Editing

One of the most powerful side benefits of electronic signature automation is that, by default, the contracts are immutable, or unchangeable, by the signer.

By default, your signer can't go in and edit your contract.  Reject a term.  Or otherwise add unnecessary back-and-forth to your contracting process.  By default, EchoSign contracts are "locked down" from the perspective of the signers.  And that's a key part of how our 40,000+ customers have reduced their send-to-sign time from more than a week to 42 minutes on average.

But sometimes ... you want to request changes from your signer.  You want collaboration on a contract.

How do you do that?  Like everything on EchoSign, it's easy.  Go to Account Settings / Send Settings on the Account tab and enable "Signer Editing".

If you then send an editable contract through EchoSign (either Word or Google Doc), and the Signer wants to request changes, he or she will then be able to via our native Google Docs integration from the sign page.  You'll then be sent back the changes to review, accept, or further modify.

All 100% on the web, 100% in the cloud.

 

 

 

 

Creating "Welcome Packages" for Signers Using Dynamic Document Visibility

This post will be the first of a small series of interesting workflows and use cases you can now create on the fly using Document Visibility.

This first use case, which many of our customers use, is the "Welcome Package".  In this case, your signer/customer first needs to sign a contract (in this demo case, a Rental Agreement), and after signing, you'd like them to automatically receive a Welcome Package PDF full of information.  E.g., how to move in for a tenant; how to get paid or how to get reimbursed for a member of your provider or affiliate network; etc.

Now this can be completely automated in EchoSign Enterprise and Global editions.

First, turn on Limited Document Visibility on the Account/Account Settings tab, and on Merge Multiple Documents, check Keep documents separated (see screenshot at bottom of post).

Now, your account is enabled to hide uploaded documents without signature or other fields from signers until after they have signed.

You're ready to go.  Upload both the contract you need signed, and the document(s) you wish to be in the Welcome Package.  Do not place a signature or any other fields on the Welcome Package - this is how EchoSign knows to hide the Welcome Package from the signer during signing.  Hit Send.

EchoSign will then only present the Signer the contract to sign on the E-Sign page, and hide the other document(s) -- in this case, the Welcome Package -- from the Signer during signing.

Once the Signer has signed, however, EchoSign will e-mail the signer not only a PDF copy of the signed Contract, but also the Welcome Package, to the Signer.

Try it.  There's a lot more than can be done with Dynamic Document Visibility - we'll outline that in future posts, and feel free to contact your Account Manager to discuss how to tune this for your use case.

Bulk New User Account Creation (for Accounts with 1000s of New Users)

In our latest release, we enhanced a feature whereby our larger customers can create 100s or 1000s of new EchoSign accounts in one step, using a .CSV file with the email addresses and other particulars of new users.

 

This isn't necessary when using EchoSign inside of apps that already auto-provision new users (e.g., EchoSign-for-Salesforce, NetSuite, SugarCRM, etc.), or when using EchoSign for Google Apps or other Single Sign On methods (e.g., SAML).

But when using the stand-alone web product with EchoSign.com accounts/credentials, this can save a huge amount of time when creating hundreds or thousands of new accounts.

You can also automatically pleace users into different groups, enabling group-level reporting, and group-level features and functionality.

If you wish to use Bulk New Account Creation, just contact your account manager and provide us a list of new users in the format described below.

 

EchoSign E-Signature - Bulk New User Account Creation Tutorial

 

 

 

EchoSign Spring 2011 Release - Part II - Launches

We're pleased to announce the second part of our Spring 2011 new feature release has been pushed out to all 40,000 EchoSign customers.

Some of the features have already been previewed on this Tips blog, and a more detailed summary is below in the Google Docs presentation.  A high-level summary includes:

• Dynamic Document Visibility.  Now, you can optionally allow signers and internal parties to only view the portions of a document pack they need to sign or review.   This also allows you to easily include 'welcome documents' for your customers / external signers only to see, as well as 'deal sheets' only for internal signers to see, with no configuration or work required.
• Self-Service Upgrades.  You wanted to add more seats more easily within an edition, we listed.  Now from any page, you can add seats, either to your existing invoiced billing (if you are invoiced) or to your existing credit card on file (if you pay by credit card), in just one click.
• More Search.  You can now search by category (e.g., Widget or Out for Signature) in the Search box.  So you could search for say, "ACME Widget" now and only return the widgets signed with ACME.  For accounts with many widgets and/or many MegaSigns, this will enable much more granular return of documents in Search.
• iPad2Salesforce and EchoSign-for-Salesforce v10 Launched.  Upgrade if you don't have version 10 - it's worth it.
• SugarCRM integration.
• And much more.

 

EchoSign-for-Salesforce v10 Launches with iPad2Salesforce

We're pleased to announce that EchoSign-for-Salesforce v10, our tenth generation of our award-winning Salesforce integration, is now live on the AppExchange.  

Version 10 includes a number of key enhancements:

• iPad2Salesforce: simplified one-click "in person" signing for field sales reps to get contracts created, signed, and stored back in Salesforce in one-click.  While this functionality has existed for some time, it's now simplified to one click.
• More Signer options: we've added the ability to send directly to an email address and other ad-hoc use cases, in addition to Leads, Contacts, Users, etc.
• Simpler Send-to-Fax #: we've added a toggle so you can, in one click, send to any fax # for signature instead of an email address.
• One Click from Salesforce Document Library.  We've simplified attaching contracts for signature from the Salesforce Document Library into one click.

Fewer clicks, more power, that's our goal.

The upgrade guide is below, there is of course no cost to upgrade, and if you need help, please contact our support and/or client success teams.

In addition, further feature enhancements such as limited document visibility and more will automatically come with the general EchoSign.com feature release in the next week.

 

EchoSign-for-SugarCRM Launches

We've taking the learnings of 5+ years of Salesforce integration and our #1 ranked Netsuite integration and launched EchoSign-for-SugarCRM.

If you use SugarCRM as your CRM system, contact your client success manager or EchoSign support for the Sugar file for your admin to install into your Sugar instance (on demand or on premise).  There is no additional cost as long as you are an EchoSign Enterprise or Global customer.

From there, it works seamlessly, allowing you to send contracts out for signature, and have them stored back inside of, Sugar.  Multi-language support for EchoSign Global users and in-person signing from inside SugarCRM (for field sales) are fully supported.

More here on SugarCRM's SugarExchange, and we'll be demo'ing it at SugarCon next week as well.