Notary Signer recipients receive an email asking them to review the agreement content and fill in any fields placed for them. If another authentication method is configured, the recipient must satisfy that authentication requirement before viewing the document.
Last updated on
10 August 2023
Overview - Notarize Integration
Adobe Acrobat Sign has partnered with Notarize, Inc. to provide online notarization services.
Acrobat Sign's integration with Notarize Inc.'s online notarization service is only available for use in the US with business and enterprise service plans.
Specifying the notarization requirements for a participant when composing a new agreement
When the notarization feature is enabled for the Acrobat Sign account, the sender can select Requires notarization by selecting the ellipsis on the right side of the recipient record.
The notarization option is only available for recipients with a Signer role.
Note:
The option to include other authentication methods is still available to vet user access to the agreement before the online notarization session.
Once the sender selects Next, additional information is requested on the Notarization details page:
Specify Notary Service
Notary Service Options available to the senders are based on the Notarize Transactions enabled for the sender based on the configurations defined by the admin in Send Settings. Notary Service Options are determined by purchased entitlements of Notarize offers obtained directly from Notarize Inc.
- Use the On-Demand Notary service from Notarize, Inc. - Available for senders with access to the On-Demand Notary service.
When using the On-Demand Notary service, there is an option available for the sender to specify that payment for the transaction needs to be made by the signer. When this option is selected, the signer will be prompted by Notarize to make the payment before the completed document can be made available. The Notarize Transaction quota for Notary on Demand associated with the sender account isn't deducted when the signer pays Notarize, Inc. for the transaction.
- Use notary provided by my organization - Available for senders with access to Notarize Inc.'s In-House Notary service.
You can optionally include the email address of the in-house notary while initiating notarization requests.
Confirm Files to be notarized
Allows senders to select all or a subset of documents to be marked as requiring notarization.
Additional Notary Options
Allows senders to optionally specify a meeting schedule and add additional instructions to the notary.
The status of agreements can be tracked via the Acrobat Sign Manage page. Once the signers requiring notarization have completed the pre-notarization review step and the agreement is out for notarization, the agreement status changes to “Out for Notarization.”
Recipient experience
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Note:
Signature fields are suppressed in this first review of the document.
All other field types are available for the recipient to provide content.
Once all required fields are completed, the recipient is prompted to Proceed with initiating the Remote Online Notarization process with Notarize, Inc.
Note:Steps 2-12 take place on the Notarize platform. The details below are provided by Notarize Inc. Please refer to Notarize Inc.'s documentation for additional details or questions on the use of Notarize's services.
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A second email is delivered to the recipient immediately from Notarize, Inc. indicating that they should start a notary session.
Note:Notarize Transactions that have multiple recipients will receive the email from Notarize, Inc. after all recipients have completed their review of the agreement.
This link opens a session with the Notarize system.
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The recipient is asked to validate their identity by answering five questions in two minutes or less.
- If the recipient answers incorrectly or takes longer than two minutes, the validation process fails.
- The recipient is given one more chance to answer five more questions. If they fail the second attempt, the session fails and the recipient cannot try again for 24 hours.
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After passing the five question verification process, the recipient is asked to provide a valid, government-issued photo ID.
The recipient has the option to take images with a mobile device, or use the web browser and their web camera:
After selecting a method, the recipient is asked to declare what type of ID they are using.
The recipient is then asked to take images of their document:
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The recipient is then connected to a live Notary Public. This may take a minute or two while the notary is contacted and accepts the session.
When the notary accepts the session, the agreement document is displayed, with the signature fields visible. The document remains locked until the notary is ready to witness the signature.
Both the notary and recipient can see the document and each other, and verbal communication is allowed through the session.
The notary validates the documents and releases the document for the recipient to sign.
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You will receive notification from Acrobat Sign once the transaction is completed.
For users with an Acrobat Sign account, completed documents and the Audit trail can be downloaded from the Acrobat Sign Manage page
Note:Individual notarized documents can be retrieved from the file attachments section of the merged PDF file.
Consumption of Notarize Transactions
Note:
This section is only applicable to customers who purchased Notarize Transactions quota.
Track available volume:
To monitor the volume of Notarize Transactions or Subscription available to the account:
Navigate to Account Settings > Send Settings > Enable the following Notary transactions
Click the Track Usage link:
A “Notarize Transaction” occurs each time the Notarize Service is used to enter into a meeting with a notary in which the notary is able to complete a notarization for at least one signatory.
A Notarize Transaction can have between one and eight signatories.
Audit Report
A successful notarization event is logged in the Acrobat Sign audit report with a separate section that includes events during notarization as reported by Notarize, Inc.
The appended report only includes the parties involved (Identified by name and email address) along with the "pass/fail" status of the event as reported by Notarize Inc. This addendum is part of the Audit Report and is purged from the system with any other action that purges the Audit Report (GDPR, Retention).
The Notarize audit trail can also be found attached to individual notarized documents.
Configuration
Availability:
The Notarize integration is available for enterprise license plans only.
Configuration scope:
The feature must be enabled at the account level.
The enablement controls can be accessed by navigating to Account Settings > Notarisation Settings
When the integration is enabled, additional controls are made available, which can be defined at the account or group level.
These controls govern the Notarize Inc services available to the account.
Navigate to Account Settings > Send Settings > Enable the following Notarize Transactions
The control options are:
- Notarize Notary on Demand Service - Allows notarization requests to be processed by agents with the Notarize service.
- In-House Notary w/ Multi-factor Signer Authentication - Allows an internal notary to process the notarization requests. This method requires the signer to pass multi-factor authentication (steps 6-9 of the recipient experience).
- In-House Notary - Personally Known by Notary - Allows an internal notary to process the notarization requests without requiring multi-factor authentication.
Note:
If you do not see the Notarize Transactions on the Send Settings page, check that the account-level settings are enabled.
Acrobat Sign integrations that support Notarize Transactions
- Microsoft integration
- Word
- PowerPoint
- Teams
- SharePoint
- Acrobat Desktop
Limitations / Incompatible features
- Localization – US English only
- The Notarize Integration Feature is not available for Custom workflows, Self-signing, and Web forms.
- Digital signatures are not supported in transactions that include notarization.
- Limited Document Visibility is not compatible with notarization and will be disregarded if enabled.
- The option to keep documents separate is not available for agreements that are notarized.
- Payment fields cannot be used for participants requiring notarization.
- The same email cannot be used for two signers (Spousal scenario) in agreements that include notarization.
- Multiple signers requiring notarizations can be initiated from a single Acrobat Sign transaction, but all signers need to join a concurrent notary session on the Notarize platform.
Frequently asked questions:
The Keep documents separate option is not currently supported with agreements involving notarization. However individual notarized documents can be retrieved from the file attachments section of the merged PDF file.
Transactions on the Send Settings page are displayed based on the organization's entitlements to Notarize Transaction types.
Contact Notarize Inc support.
Note:
If there are updates to Notarize managed subscriptions (such as addition of new Transaction types, you may need to reactivate the integration via account level settings in order for new Notarize managed Transaction types to show in Send Settings .To reactivate the integration, first disable the integration and then enable again by entering the Notarize API key.
No, witnesses may not be specified.
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