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Electronic Sealing via customer-owned digital certificate

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Adobe Acrobat Sign Guide

What's New

  1. Pre-Release Notes
  2. Release Notes
  3. Important Notifications

Get Started

  1. Quick start guide for administrators
  2. Quick start guide for users
  3. For Developers
  4. Video tutorial library
  5. FAQ

Administer

  1. Admin Console Overview
  2. User Management
    1. Add a User
    2. Add Users in Bulk
    3. Add Users from your Directory
    4. Add Users from MS Azure Active Directory
    5. Create function-focused users
      1. Technical accounts - API driven
      2. Service accounts - Manually driven
    6. Check for users with provisioning errors
    7. Change Name/Email Address
    8. Edit a user's group membership
    9. Edit a user's group membership through the group interface
    10. Promote a user to an admin role
    11. User Identity Types and SSO
    12. Switch User Identity
    13. Authenticate Users with MS Azure
    14. Authenticate Users with Google Federation
    15. Product Profiles
    16. Login Experience 
  3. Account/Group Settings
    1. Settings Overview
    2. Global Settings
      1. Account tier and ID
      2. Self Signing Workflows
      3. Send in Bulk
      4. Web Forms
      5. Custom Send Workflows
      6. Power Automate Workflows
      7. Library Documents
      8. Collect form data with agreements
      9. Limited Document Visibility
      10. Attach a PDF copy of the signed agreement 
      11. Include a link in the email
      12. Include an image in the email
      13. Files attached to email will be named as
      14. Attach audit reports to documents
      15. Merge multiple documents into one
      16. Download individual documents
      17. Upload a signed document
      18. Delegation for users in my account
      19. Allow external recipients to delegate
      20. Authority to sign
      21. Authority to send
      22. Power to add Electronic Seals
      23. Set a default time zone
      24. Set a default date format
      25. Users in Multiple Groups (UMG)
        1. Upgrade to use UMG
      26. Group Administrator Permissions
      27. Replace recipient
      28. Audit Report
        1. Overview
        2. Allow unauthenticated access on the transaction verification page
        3. Include reminders
        4. Include view events
        5. Include agreement page/attachment count
      29. In Product Messaging and Guidance
      30. Accessible PDFs
      31. New authoring experience
      32. Healthcare customer
    3. Account Setup
      1. Add logo
      2. Customize company Hostname/URL    
      3. Add company name
      4. Post agreement URL redirect
    4. Signature Preferences
      1. Well formatted signatures
      2. Allow recipients to sign by
      3. Signers can change their name
      4. Allow recipients to use their saved signature
      5. Custom Terms of Use and Consumer Disclosure
      6. Navigate recipients through form fields
      7. Decline to sign
      8. Allow Stamps workflows
      9. Require signers to provide their Title or Company
      10. Allow signers to print and place a written signature
      11. Show messages when e-signing
      12. Require signers to use a mobile device to create their signature
      13. Request IP address from signers
      14. Exclude company name and title from participation stamps
    5. Digital Signatures
      1. Overview
      2. Download and sign with Acrobat
      3. Sign with Cloud Signatures
      4. Include metadata for Identity Providers
      5. Restricted Cloud Signatures Providers
    6. Electronic Seals
    7. Digital Identity
      1. Digital Identity Gateway
      2. Identity Check policy
    8. Report Settings
      1. New report experience
      2. Classic report settings
    9. Security Settings
      1. Single Sign-on settings
      2. Remember-me settings
      3. Login password policy
      4. Login password strength
      5. Web session duration
      6. PDF encryption type
      7. API
      8. User and group info access
      9. Allowed IP Ranges
      10. Account Sharing
      11. Account sharing permissions
      12. Agreement sharing controls
      13. Signer identity verification
      14. Agreement signing password
      15. Document password strength
      16. Block signers by Geolocation
      17. Phone Authentication
      18. Knowledge-Based Authentication (KBA)
      19. Allow page extraction
      20. Document link expiration
      21. Upload a client certificate for webhooks/callbacks
      22. Timestamp
    10. Send settings
      1. Show Send page after login
      2. Require recipient name when sending
      3. Lock name values for known users
      4. Allowed recipient roles
      5. Recipient groups
      6. Required fields
      7. Attaching documents
      8. Field flattening
      9. Modify Agreements
      10. Agreement name
      11. Languages
      12. Private messages
      13. Allowed signature types
      14. Reminders
      15. Signed document password protection
      16. Send Agreement Notification through
      17. Signer identification options
        1. Overview
        2. Signing password
        3. One-Time Password via Email
        4. Acrobat Sign authentication
        5. Phone authentication
        6. Cloud-based digital signature
        7. Knowledge-based authentication
        8. Government ID
        9. Signer Identity reports
      18. Content Protection
      19. Enable Notarize transactions
      20. Document Expiration
      21. Preview, position signatures, and add fields
      22. Signing order
      23. Liquid mode
      24. Custom workflow controls
      25. Upload options for the e-sign page
      26. Post-sign confirmation URL redirect
    11. Message Templates
    12. Bio-Pharma Settings
      1. Overview
      2. Enforce identity authentication
      3. Signing reasons
    13. Workflow Integration
    14. Notarization Settings
    15. Payments Integration
    16. Signer Messaging
    17. SAML Settings
      1. SAML Configuration
      2. Install Microsoft Active Directory Federation Service
      3. Install Okta
      4. Install OneLogin
      5. Install Oracle Identity Federation
    18. Data Governance
    19. Time Stamp Settings
    20. External Archive
    21. Account Languages
    22. Email Settings
      1. Email header/footer images
      2. Permit individual user email footers
      3. Customize the Signature Requested email
      4. Customize the To and CC fields
      5. Enable Linkless Notifications
      6. Customize email templates
    23. Migrating from echosign.com to adobesign.com
    24. Configure Options for Recipients
  4. Guidance for regulatory requirements
    1. Accessibility
      1. Accessibility Compliance
      2. Create accessible forms with Acrobat desktop
      3. Create accessible AcroForms
    2. HIPAA
    3. GDPR
      1. GDPR Overview
      2. Redact a user
      3. Redact a user's agreements    
    4. 21 CFR part 11 and EudraLex Annex 11
      1. 21 CRF part 11 validation pack
      2. 21 CFR and EudraLex Annex 11 handbook
      3. Analysis of shared responsibilities
    5. Healthcare customers
    6. IVES support
    7. "Vaulting" agreements
    8. EU/UK considerations
      1. EU/UK Cross-border transactions and eIDAS
      2. HMLR requirements for deeds signed electronically
      3. The impact of Brexit on e-signature laws in the UK
  5. Download Agreements in Bulk
  6. Claim your domain 
  7. Report Abuse links

Send, Sign, and Manage Agreements

  1. Recipient Options
    1. Cancel an email reminder
    2. Options on the e-signing page
      1. Overview of the e-sign page
      2. Open to read the agreement without fields
      3. Decline to sign an agreement
      4. Delegate signing authority
      5. Restart the agreement
      6. Download a PDF of the agreement
      7. View the agreement history
      8. View the agreement messages
      9. Convert from an electronic to a written signature
      10. Convert from a written to an electronic signature 
      11. Navigate the form fields
      12. Clear the data from the form fields
      13. E-sign page magnification and navigation
      14. Change the language used in the agreement tools and information
      15. Review the Legal Notices
      16. Adjust Acrobat Sign Cookie Preferences
  2. Send Agreements  
    1. Send page overview
    2. Send an agreement only to yourself
    3. Send an agreement to others
    4. Written Signatures
    5. Recipient signing order
    6. Send in Bulk
      1. Overview of the Send in Bulk feature
      2. Send in Bulk - manual recipients
      3. Send in Bulk - CSV upload
      4. Cancel a Send in Bulk transaction
      5. Add reminders to Send in Bulk
      6. Reporting for Send in Bulk
  3. Authoring fields into documents
    1. In-app authoring environment
      1. Automatic field detection
      2. Drag and drop fields using the authoring environment
      3. Assign form fields to recipients
      4. The Prefill role
      5. Apply fields with a reusable field template
      6. Transfer fields to a new library template
      7. Updated authoring environment when sending agreements
    2. Create forms with text tags
    3. Create forms using Acrobat (AcroForms)
      1. AcroForm creation
      2. Creating accessible PDFs
    4. Fields
      1. Field types
        1. Common field types
        2. In-line Images
        3. Stamp Images
      2. Field content appearance
      3. Field validations
      4. Masked fields values
      5. Setting show/hide conditions
      6. Calculated fields 
    5. Authoring FAQ
  4. Sign Agreements
    1. Sign agreements sent to you
    2. Fill & Sign
    3. Self-signing
  5. Manage Agreements
    1. Manage page overview
    2. Delegate agreements
    3. Replace Recipients
    4. Limit Document Visibility 
    5. Cancel an Agreement 
    6. Create new reminders
    7. Review reminders
    8. Cancel a reminder
    9. Access Power Automate flows
    10. More Actions...
      1. How search works
      2. View an agreement
      3. Create a template from an agreement
      4. Hide/Unhide agreements from view
      5. Upload a signed agreement
      6. Modify a sent agreement's files and fields
      7. Edit a recipient's authentication method
      8. Add or modify an expiration date
      9. Add a Note to the agreement
      10. Share an individual agreement
      11. Unshare an agreement
      12. Download an individual agreement
      13. Download the individual files of an agreement
      14. Download the Audit Report of an agreement
      15. Download the field content of an agreement
  6. Audit Report
  7. Reporting and Data exports
    1. Overview
    2. Grant users access to reporting
    3. Report charts
      1. Create a new report
      2. Agreement Reports
      3. Transaction Reports
      4. Settings Activity Report
      5. Edit a report
    4. Data Exports 
      1. Create a new data export
      2. Edit a data export
      3. Refresh the data export content
      4. Download the data export
    5. Rename a report/export
    6. Duplicate a report/export
    7. Schedule a report/export
    8. Delete a report/export
    9. Check Transaction Usage

Advanced Agreement Capabilities and Workflows

  1. Webforms 
    1. Create a web form
    2. Edit a web form
    3. Disable/Enable a web form
    4. Hide/Unhide a web form
    5. Find the URL or script code 
    6. Prefill web form fields with URL parameters
    7. Save a web form to complete later
    8. Resize a web form
  2. Reusable Templates (Library templates) 
    1. US Government forms in the Acrobat Sign library
    2. Create a library template
    3. Change a library template's name
    4. Change a library template's type
    5. Change a library template's permission level
    6. Copy, edit, and save a shared template
    7. Download the aggregate field data for a library template
  3. Transfer ownership of web forms and library templates
  4. Power Automate Workflows 
    1. Overview of the Power Automate integration and included entitlements
    2. Enable the Power Automate integration
    3. In-Context Actions on the Manage page
    4. Track Power Automate usage
    5. Create a new flow (Examples)
    6. Triggers used for flows
    7. Importing flows from outside Acrobat Sign
    8. Manage flows
    9. Edit flows
    10. Share flows
    11. Disable or Enable flows
    12. Delete flows
    13. Useful Templates
      1. Administrator only
        1. Save all completed documents to SharePoint
        2. Save all completed documents to OneDrive for Business
        3. Save all completed documents to Google Drive
        4. Save all completed documents to DropBox
        5. Save all completed documents to Box
      2. Agreement archival
        1. Save your completed documents to SharePoint
        2. Save your completed documents to One Drive for Business
        3. Save your completed documents to Google Drive
        4. Save your completed documents to DropBox
        5. Save your completed documents to Box
      3. Webform agreement archival
        1. Save completed web form documents to SharePoint Library
        2. Save completed web form documents to OneDrive for Business
        3. Save completed   documents to Google Drive
        4. Save completed web form documents to Box
      4. Agreement data extraction
        1. Extract form field data from your signed document and update Excel sheet
      5. Agreement notifications
        1. Send custom email notifications with your agreement contents and signed agreement
        2. Get your Adobe Acrobat Sign notifications in a Teams Channel
        3. Get your Adobe Acrobat Sign notifications in Slack
        4. Get your Adobe Acrobat Sign notifications in Webex
      6. Agreement generation
        1. Generate document from Power App form and Word template, send for signature
        2. Generate agreement from Word template in OneDrive, and get signature
        3. Generate agreement for selected Excel row, send for review and signature
  5. Custom Send workflows
    1. Custom Send Workflow Overview
    2. Creating a new Send Workflow
    3. Edit a Send Workflow
    4. Activate or Deactivate a Send Workflow
    5. Send an agreement with a Send Workflow
  6. Share users and agreements
    1. Share a user
    2. Share agreements

Integrate with other products

  1.  Acrobat Sign integrations overview 
  2. Acrobat Sign for Salesforce
  3. Acrobat Sign for Microsoft
    1. Acrobat Sign for Microsoft 365
    2. Acrobat Sign for Outlook
    3. Acrobat Sign for Word/PowerPoint
    4. Acrobat Sign for Teams
    5. Acrobat Sign for Microsoft PowerApps and Power Automate
    6. Acrobat Sign Connector for Microsoft Search
    7. Acrobat Sign for Microsoft Dynamics 
    8. Acrobat Sign for Microsoft SharePoint 
  4. Other Integrations
    1. Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow
    2. Acrobat Sign for HR ServiceNow
    3. Acrobat Sign for SAP SuccessFactors
    4. Acrobat Sign for Workday
    5. Acrobat Sign for NetSuite
    6. Acrobat Sign for VeevaVault
    7. Acrobat Sign for Coupa BSM Suite
  5. Partner managed integrations
  6. How to obtain an integration key

Acrobat Sign Developer

  1. REST APIs 
    1. Methods documentation
    2. SDK/Developer Guide
    3. API FAQ    
  2. Webhooks 
    1. Webhook overview
    2. Configure a new webhook
    3. View or edit a webhook
    4. Deactivate or reactivate a webhook
    5. Delete a webhook
    6. Two-way SSL certificates
    7. Webhooks in the API

Support and Troubleshooting

  1. Customer Support Resources 
  2. Enterprise Customer Success Resources 

Overview

Electronic seals (e-seals) provide the same legal validity as a company rubber stamp on paper, where no individual signer authenticity is conveyed. The main difference between a seal and a signature is that a signature is meant for individuals (natural persons), whereas a seal is used by a legal entity (business or organization). E-seals can be applied by more than one person or system under the control or supervision of the legal entity.

The electronic sealing feature in Adobe Acrobat Sign allows organizations to apply e-seals using digital certificates issued to their legal entity to help convey the integrity and authenticity of invoices, statements, or other official documents. Seals can be placed using only a graphic, a text block containing the subject, reason, date, and time of the seal, or a combination of both the graphical seal and text.

Users are assigned specific privileges to automatically apply an e-seal for their organization to a document using a digital certificate obtained from a Trust Service Provider (TSP) with a Cloud Signature Consortium (CSC) API integration with OAuth 2.0 Client Credential authorization flow. The following providers currently support this feature:

Prerequisites

  • An enterprise-tier account is required to access the API and configure the seal.
  • Acquire the following from your Trust Service Provider (see above for TSP options)
    • OAuth 2.0 client_id and client_secret: Adobe uses these values to generate an access token which is used to make remote signing calls to the TSP. The access token is generated by calling the oauth2/token endpoint with a grant_type of "client_credentials." Please see section 8.3.3 of https://cloudsignatureconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/CSC_API_V1_1.0.4.0.pdf for details.
    • Credential ID: An Identifier associated with the credentials of a given user for the TSP provider. A credential is a cryptographic object with related data used to support a remote digital signature over the Internet. It consists of the combination of a public/private key pair (also named "signing key" in CEN EN 419 241-1 [i.5]) and an X.509 public-key certificate managed by a remote signing service provider on behalf of a user. The credential is used as the entity with which the electronic seal is associated.
    • Credential PIN: A pin code is used to secure access to a given TSP credential.

Configuration

Availability:

Electronic Seals are available for enterprise license plans.

Configuration scope:

The feature can be enabled at the account and group levels.

The controls for this feature can be assessed by navigating to the Electronic Seals tab of the admin menu

Three settings must be configured to expose the e-seal options on the user's Send page.

  1. Allow electronic seals as a recipient role.
  2. Enable the account/group for senders to mark recipients with an electronic sealer role.
  3. Authorize user(s) to add electronic seals to their agreements, either by the account/group level setting or individually through the user's profile.

To allow your senders to use the e-seal role, you must enable it in the group from which the agreement will be sent.

  • Enable the role at the account level and allow the group's default inheritance of the setting.
  • Explicitly enable the role in the individual group's settings.

To enable the electronic seal recipient role, navigate to: Account Settings > Send Settings > Allowed Recipient Roles

Navigate to the recipient roles controls

Note:

If the option to allow electronic sealers is not enabled for the group in which the agreement is configured, the Add Electronic Seal link will not be exposed.

The default status for users to include e-seals in their agreements can be configured at the account and group levels.

For most accounts, the recommendation is to disable access at the account level and explicitly enable groups where appropriate. Accounts that have Users in Multiple Groups enabled may find dedicated groups for agreements that demand e-seals useful in limiting e-seal access at the group level.

The options are:

  • By default, anyone in the group can use e-seals.
  • By default, no one in the group can use e-seals.

In either case, individual users can be explicitly configured to override the group-level settings. (See Authorize individual users to add electronic seals below.)

Navigate to the default user profile settings

Note:

If the option to add electronic seals is not enabled for the user creating the agreement, the Add Electronic Seal link will not be exposed.

Account-level administrators can edit the user profile of individual users to explicitly enable/disable their authority to include electronic seals in their agreements.

This authority is applied to the user directly, which overrides the group level settings for all groups in which the user is a member.

It is recommended that user-level enablement only be done when the expectation is that the whole of the account will have access to e-seals disabled, and only specialized userIDs will initiate agreements that exploit e-seals (such as API-driven workflows/technical accounts).

To explicitly enable/disable access to apply e-seals:

  1. Navigate to Users > [individual user] > Edit User Detail.
  2. Select/deselect the User can electronically seal documents checkbox.
  3. Save the user profile.
Edit the user detials

Create a new e-seal

At least one e-seal must be configured, active, and available to the group from which the agreement is being sent. Otherwise, the option to add the e-seal isn't exposed on the page.

Creating an e-seal requires that you first obtain a digital certificate from a TSP with a CSC API integration. (See the Prerequisites)

Once you have the certificate, you can configure the e-seal:

  1. Navigate to Account Settings > Electronic Seals.

  2. Click the plus icon with a circle around it .

    Create a new Electronic Seal

  3. The interface to configure the new e-seal opens.

    Enter the e-seal parameters using the information provided by your TSP:

    • Name - Enter an intuitive name for the e-seal. This name is presented to the senders on the Send page.
    • Cloud Signature Provider - Select the provider that issued the certificate.
      • OAuth Client ID - Enter the client ID obtained from your TSP.
      • OAuth Client Secret - Enter the client secret obtained from your TSP.
      • Credential ID - Enter the credential ID obtained from your TSP.
      • Credential PIN - Enter the credential PIN obtained from your TSP.
    • Reason - Provide some text that identifies the reason for the e-seal application. This string is displayed in the e-seal on the document and in the audit report.
    • Group -Select the group for which the e-seal is available.
    • Graphic appearance -  One or both of the blow options must be enabled for the seal to be successfully saved and used:
      • Display Subject, Reason, Date, Time and Acrobat logo - When enabled, the text components of the seal are applied in the signature. If not enabled, only the seal graphic is used.
      • Upload a graphic file to customize the appearance of this Seal - When an image is uploaded, it is applied to the signature. If no image is uploaded, only the text is used.
    • Display email - Provide an email address that should be associated with the e-seal. This email is displayed in the email template as the address for the e-seal recipient.

  4. Select Save when done.

    Define the seal properties

    Example of the three seal configurations

    The configured e-seal is created in Active status and displays on the Electronic Seals page in the list of seals.

    The e-seal is ready to be applied to agreements immediately.

    Configured Electronic Seal

Things to know

Electronic Seals cannot be added to Recipient Groups.

Electronic Seals cannot be added to Hybrid signature flows.

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