Log in to your 365 Outlook account and select Mail.
Last updated on
25 March 2024
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Also applies to Adobe Acrobat Sign
- Adobe Acrobat Sign Integrations
- What's New
- Product Versions and Lifecycle
- Acrobat Sign for Salesforce
- Install the Package
- Configure the Package
- User Guide
- Enable Digital Authentication
- Developer Guide
- Advanced Customization Guide
- Field Mapping and Templates Guide
- Mobile App User Guide
- Flows Automation Guide
- Document Builder Guide
- Configure Large Documents
- Upgrade Guide
- Release Notes
- FAQs
- Troubleshooting Guide
- Additional Articles
- Acrobat Sign for Microsoft
- Acrobat Sign for Microsoft 365
- Acrobat Sign for Outlook
- Acrobat Sign for Word/PowerPoint
- Acrobat Sign for Teams
- Acrobat Sign for Microsoft PowerApps and Power Automate
- Acrobat Sign Connector for Microsoft Search
- Acrobat Sign for Microsoft Dynamics
- Acrobat Sign for Microsoft SharePoint
- Overview
- SharePoint On-Prem: Installation Guide
- SharePoint On-Prem: Template Mapping Guide
- SharePoint On-Prem: User Guide
- SharePoint On-Prem: Release Notes
- SharePoint Online: Installation Guide
- SharePoint Online: Template Mapping Guide
- SharePoint Online: User Guide
- SharePoint Online: Web Form Mapping Guide
- SharePoint Online: Release Notes
- Acrobat Sign for Microsoft 365
- Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow
- Acrobat Sign for HR ServiceNow
- Acrobat Sign for SAP SuccessFactors
- Acrobat Sign for Workday
- Acrobat Sign for NetSuite
- Acrobat Sign for SugarCRM
- Acrobat Sign for VeevaVault
- Acrobat Sign for Coupa BSM Suite
- Acrobat Sign for Zapier
- Acrobat Sign Developer Documentation
Overview
The Adobe Acrobat Sign for Outlook add-in allows you to configure a new agreement from within an email client. You can send agreements with new emails, or reply to an existing email by importing the recipient list and automatically attaching any files from the source email.
Adobe Acrobat Sign for Outlook Add-in: User Guide helps you learn how to:
- Install and enable Adobe Acrobat Sign add-in on your Outlook account – All users can perform this one-time process without elevated system permissions.
- Establish the authenticated connection between Outlook and Adobe Acrobat Sign – Once the add-in is enabled, you must authenticate to both environments to create a trust relationship between Microsoft and Adobe Acrobat Sign.
- Use Adobe Acrobat Sign add-in – It explains the features and uses of the Adobe Acrobat Sign.
Microsoft 365 admins can centrally install the add-in at the tenant level, and control access at the user level if desired. This permits access to both Word and PowerPoint to all users in the tenant.
Note: During authentication and use of the add-in, Outlook 365 will prompt an authorization panel when attempting to open a new window. When this happens, select Allow.
Prerequisites
You must ensure that your system meets the following requirements:
- Supported products: Exchange Online
- Windows OS:
- Windows 10 earlier than version 1903 must install Microsoft Webview
- Windows 10 version 1903+
- Windows 11
- Microsoft Office supported versions:
- For Windows:
- Office 2016 (build 16.0.4390.1000+)
- Office 2019 (build 16.0.12527.20720+)
- Office 2021 (build 16.0.14326.204454+)
- Office for Windows, subscription (version 1602, Build 6741.0000+)
- For Mac:
- Office for Mac (v15.34+)
- For Web:
- Office Online (365), using current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge
- Office Online Server (version 1608, Build 7601.6800+)
- For Windows:
- Basic Microsoft requirements to use Office
Note:
- Private/Incognito browser sessions are not supported.
- Mobile browsers and mobile apps are not supported.
Edge browsers
For the add-in to work seamlessly in Edge browsers, you must trust the following sites in your browser security configuration:
- https://*.echocdn.com
- https://*.echosign.com
- https://*.adobesigncdn.com
- https://*.adobesign.com
- https://*.microsoftonline.com
- https://*.office.com
- https://*.office365.com
- https://*.live.com (If using a Live account)
- https://*.sharepoint.com
- If using a third-party identity management system, that URL needs to be added as well
Mac High Sierra OS
High Sierra users may encounter an issue while trying to access the add-in from the Outlook desktop app (version 16.11 up) that throws a generic error message from Adobe Acrobat Sign stating that the cookies are not enabled.
If this happens:
- Open the add-in Settings, and Sign Out
- Re-authenticate to the service by clicking Get Started
If re-authenticating fails to correct the problem, contact customer support.
Enable Adobe Acrobat Sign for Outlook Add-in
You can install the Adobe Acrobat Sign for Outlook add-in for the web-based and desktop-launched applications. Installing the application in one environment enables it in both
Access to the store is slightly different in each environment. Refer to the instructions below to learn how to install the add-in for each application.
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To access the add-in, open any email. You can access Adobe Acrobat Sign from one of the following locations:
- New emails – The interface to compose a new email exposes the icon in the lower-right corner of the screen. New emails only have the option to Send for Signature.
- Reply emails – When replying to an email, the icon is found in the upper, mid-right corner of the window (depending on how many add-ins you have installed)
Note:When you invoke the add-in from a Reply email, a pop-out menu will appear prompting you to select one of three functions (as described in Using the add-in section).
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Note:
If the Store button is not visible in your ribbon options, then it is likely that your Office admin has disallowed individual store access.
Contact your Office admin or IT team to allow access, or deploy the add-in to your organization.
Establish the authenticated relationship
Once the add-in is enabled within the email client, you must create a relationship between your Microsoft account and your Adobe Acrobat Sign account. This ensures that only you are sending agreements through your Adobe Acrobat Sign user.
Note:
Once you have established this relationship, you do not need to authenticate again to either system. The authenticated relationship is persistent unless explicitly deleted by signing out of the add-in.
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Select New Email.
Ensure the application has the Acrobat Sign add-in.
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From the Home menu, locate Adobe Acrobat Sign panel and then select Send for Signature.
It opens the add-in panel on the right side of the window.
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From the panel, select Get Started.
The Get Free Trial link opens a new window to the Adobe Acrobat Sign 30-day free trial registration page. If you don’t already have an Adobe Acrobat Sign account, sign up for the free trial before you continue. Accounts in the Acrobat Sign for Government environment do not have access to free trials.
Connect Microsoft Word to Adobe Acrobat Sign. Connect Microsoft Word to Adobe Acrobat Sign. -
If prompted to authenticate into Microsoft 365 environment, select the user you intend to use. The user you are already authenticated as appears at the top of the list.
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When prompted to grant access to the add-in, select Accept.
A new window opens to capture the authentication for Adobe Acrobat Sign.
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Authenticate using your Adobe Acrobat Sign credentials and then on the 'Confirm access for..' dialog, select Allow Access.
Once the Adobe Acrobat Sign authentication is successful, the add-in panel on the right changes to show the add-in splash page.
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Select Got It to open the configuration panel.
The trusted relationship is in place and remains functional until you sign out of the add-in.
Disabling/uninstalling the add-in does not delete the trusted relationship.
Use Adobe Acrobat Sign for Outlook add-in
Once the trust relationship with Adobe Acrobat Sign is established, you can send agreements directly from your email client.
For handling emails, Outlook has the following two modes:
In Compose mode, you can type or add attachments to the email.
- To start a new email, select New.
- To reply to an existing email thread, select Reply to
- Only Send of Signature feature is available in Compose mode.
To send emails from Compose mode:
When launching the add-in from an email, the add-in seeks to include values from the email itself. When composing a new email (either from New or Reply button), you can configure that email as a template before launching the add-in, make short work of renewals, and other boilerplate transactions.
- If an attachment is included in the email, the add-in attempts to attach that same file as the agreement document.
- If there are recipients listed in the TO: field (other than the sender), those emails will be imported as the recipient list, in the order they appear in the TO: field.
- If there is content in the Subject line, that literal string will be used as the Agreement Name.
- If there is content in the body of the email, that content will be imported as the Agreement Message.
Note:
All fields can be manually added to or edited. Importing values from the email is an optional perk, not a requirement.
Send agreement from different groups
The Send From drop-down list displays the groups that you can send the agreement from. You may select a group that you want to send the agreement from or keep the agreement's default group.
To add Documents:
At the top of the add-in panel is the Documents section. These are the files that are attached to the agreement, and presented to the recipients for their signature.
- If you launch the add-in from an email with an attachment on it, that attachment is automatically inserted into the document list.
- If you want to remove a file from the Documents list, click the X on the far right of the document file name.
To add files to the agreement, from next to the Documents heading, select + Add Files.
- The documents are presented to the recipients in the order they are listed in the add-in panel.
- To add files from your Adobe Acrobat Sign library, select More Options.
Supported file formats:
- Word (.doc, .docx)
- PowerPoint (.ppt, .pptx)
- Excel (.xls, xlsx)
- HTML
- RTF
- TIF/TIFF
- JPG/JPEG
- BMP
- GIF
- PNG
To Add Recipients
Under the Documents list is the Recipients list.
The order of the recipients in the list is the order in which the recipients are required to sign the agreement.
- If you launch the add-in from an email that has the TO: field configured, the recipients are imported to the add-in panel in the order they are listed in the TO: field.
- Recipients can be typed directly into the add-in panel. The panel will reference your Outlook contact list and attempt to match what you are typing to a known contact.
- All recipients have the role of Signer. If you need to set different recipient roles, or send using a parallel/hybrid workflow, select More Options.
- All signers receive a verification email. If you need to use a second-factor verification method, select More Options.
- If your Acrobat Sign account has a default signer authentication method that requires you to enter additional information before sending an agreement, you must select More Options to provide the required details and then send the agreement.
Caution:
If you are sending agreements from Acrobat Sign accounts with a default authentication method such as Phone (that requires senders to enter additional information), do not attempt to send agreements using the side panel of Acrobat Sign for Microsoft Outlook add-in as that may result in an error. You must select More Options to provide the required details and then send the agreement.
To Add Agreement Name & Message:
The Messages section is under the Recipients list.
There are two fields in this section: Agreement and Agreement Message.
The Agreement Name is the top field. If you are launching the add-in panel from an existing or configured email, the Subject line is imported as the agreement name. If there is no Subject content, the name of the first attached (Document) file is inserted as the agreement name. You can manually edit the agreement name at any time.
The Agreement Message is included in the Please Sign email. It has following features:
- When the agreement is launched from an existing email, the body content of the email is inserted into the message field.
- If there is no content in the email body, a default message is entered: Please review and complete this document.
- The Message field as a 1000-character limit.
- In the top right corner of the Message section is a Clear Message link that will remove all the content from the Message window.
- If you use Message Templates or Private Messages, use the More Options link.
To Preview & Send:
The Preview & Send checkbox invokes the Adobe Acrobat Sign authoring environment once the Next button is clicked.
- When you select Preview & Send checkbox, the Send button changes to Continue. You may uncheck the Preview & Send checkbox to revert back to Send.
To Send/Continue:
This button commits the agreement to the next step, either starting the signature cycle, or opening the authoring environment, depending on how the add-in panel is configured.
The text of the button tells you what to expect:
- Send – The Send button ends the configuration stage, and launches the agreement, notifying the first recipient.
- Continue – When the Preview & Send checkbox is checked, the button text changes to Continue
- Clicking the Continue button opens the Adobe Acrobat Sign authoring environment where you can review the document order, and place form/signature fields as needed
- After reviewing the document and/or placing any fields, the agreement is launched to the first recipient by clicking Send on the authoring page. You are not returned to the add-in to launch this agreement.
More Options
Adobe Acrobat Sign offers a wider set of options than can reasonably be installed into an add-in. Features like recipient roles and private messages over complicate the relatively small footprint that the add-in occupies. But for many, those options are critical to the business process.
The More Options link, just under the Send/Continue button, opens a windowed instance of the Adobe Acrobat Sign Send page, complete with all options available to your account.
All the configured elements in the add-in panel are imported to the Send page, in the order they exist, and they are fully editable if you need to make adjustments.
Once the agreement is sent, the add-in panel presents a success notification.
Two options are available in the post-send panel:
- View Agreement – Opens a windowed view of the agreement that was just sent
- Adobe Acrobat Sign Menu – This option changes the panel to show the add-in feature options
- Send for Signature
Additionally, a banner is added to the email body, indicating that the agreement is available to sign in a separate email.
This is provided in the event that the sender wants to send a follow-up email to the one auto-generated by the Adobe Acrobat Sign system.
In Read mode, you can view an email but cannot edit it. Read mode enables the following three features:
- Fill and Sign – It allows the sender (and only the sender) to add content, sign, and optionally send a file to another party as a completed document.
- Send for Signature – It creates an agreement that can have one or multiple recipients other than the sender. The sender may be a recipient, just not the only recipient.
- Agreement status – It displays a list of the last ten agreements that include the user, including Draft, Out for Signature, Waiting for me to sign, and Signed.
Sending emails from Read mode
- Using Fill and Sign
- It is used when you, and only you, need to fill in a document and apply a signature. No other signers are involved. If you get a request to “Fill this out, sign it and send it back to me”, you must use this option.
- The attachment on the email (if any) is automatically attached to the agreement definition being built in the add-in panel on the right side of the window.
- To add more files to the agreement, from next to the Document heading, select + Add Files. Adding agreements works just like the web application. The documents are presented to the signer in the order they are listed in the add-in panel.
- To launch the Fill and Sign window once all the files are attached, select Continue.
- In the Fill and Sign window that opens, you can type text on the form, select checkboxes, apply signature, and apply initials. Once done, select Done. For more information, refer here.
- After processing for a moment, it opens a Reply email with the signed copy of the document already attached.
- The add-in panel shows a success message that you have signed the document, with the following three options: View Signed PDF, Save a Copy, and Adobe Acrobat Sign Menu.
- It is used when you, and only you, need to fill in a document and apply a signature. No other signers are involved. If you get a request to “Fill this out, sign it and send it back to me”, you must use this option.
Using Send for Signature:
- It is the standard sending process for an agreement where the sender is not the sole signer.
- The attachment on the email (if any) is automatically attached to the agreement definition being built in the add-in panel on the right side of the window.
- To add more files to the agreement, from next to the Document heading, select + Add Files. Adding agreements works just like the web application. The documents are presented to the signer in the order they are listed in the add-in panel.
- To add recipients, select Recipients and enter a name or email address in the field. The add-in shows contacts from your 365 account that match the string you have typed in, helping to find the right recipient.
Recipients are not imported from the email in Read mode. The order in which the recipients are entered determines the signature order of the agreement. - Note that all recipients are considered Signers when configured in the add-in. To assign different roles, select More Options.
- To edit the agreement name or message, enter a name in the Name field. By default, this field adopts the name value of the first file attached to the agreement. In the Message field, enter the desired text to change the default value.
- To preview the agreement, select Preview & Send checkbox. It opens a windowed version of the authoring page, exposing all the standard fields and tools for creating forms.
- To send the agreement as currently configured, select Send / Continue. If the Preview & Send check box is checked, the authoring page opens, allowing fields to be placed on the document. Once all fields are placed, select Send.
- To include additional configuration, select More Options. It opens a windowed version of the Send page in the web application, exposing all the standard options that you would see in the application. Any configuration done in the add-in panel populates to the Send window and is fully editable.
- To enter authoring mode, select Next. Else, uncheck Preview & Add Signature Fields and select Send.
- Once the agreement is sent, the add-in panel shows a success notification with the following two options:
- View Agreement – It opens a windowed view of the sent agreement.
- Adobe Acrobat Sign Menu – It changes the panel to show the add-in feature options: Fill and Sign, Send for Signature, and Agreement Status.
- Using Agreement Status:
The Agreement Status option displays the last ten agreements (based on last update date) that are still open and waiting for some action. This includes drafts that are waiting for authoring, agreements waiting for your signature, and agreements waiting for some other recipient.
Each listed agreement can be expanded to expose the most recent event posted for that agreement, indicating where in the signature process the agreement is.
- The three most recent events logged against the agreement are listed (Created, Viewed, Signed, etc.), with the most recent on top
- Clicking the View Agreement link within the agreement information opens a new window showing the document in its current state
- Documents waiting for your signature display a Sign Agreement link that opens a new window containing the document ready to sign
At the bottom of the events list is a Track All Agreements link that opens a windowed instance of the Manage page from the application. From the Manage page, the whole history of the account is available.
Modify add-in settings
You can change the settings of the add-in as per your requirements. To do so, from the bottom of the add-in panel, select the gear icon next to Adobe Document Cloud. It opens a dialog with the following Settings options:
- Upgrade (trial accounts only): It opens a new window to the Adobe Acrobat Sign Upgrade process where you can purchase access to Adobe Acrobat Sign on a monthly subscription.
- Sign Out: The relationship between your Outlook and Adobe Acrobat Sign user accounts is “remembered” by the add-in so you don’t have to authenticate every time you use the add-in. To send agreements from multiple Adobe Acrobat Sign accounts, you must sign out from your current user account and then establish a new relationship using the new Adobe Acrobat Sign user account.
- Help: It is a link to the Adobe Acrobat Sign for Microsoft Outlook Add-in: User Guide and any additional built content related to the add-in.
- About: It prompts a small pop-up that gives information about the add-in that you are using.
- Privacy Policy: It is a link to the Adobe privacy policy.
Installing at the Tenant level
Installing the add-in at the tenant level allows the admins to expose the add-in by default. It ensures easy and smooth access to the add-in for all users.
To enable the add-in at the tenant level:
- Log in as the Tenant admin and navigate to the Admin panel.
- Go to the Exchange admin center.
- Select Add-ins.
- To add new add-ins, select the plus icon (+) and select Add from the Office Store option. It installs the add-in as Disabled by default.
- To configure the add-in:
- Assign Users as one of the following options:
- Everyone - Applies the deployment method to all users in the Tenant
- Specific users/groups - Applies the deployment method to only the selected users or groups
- Just me - Applies the deployment method to just the user (admin) doing the configuration
- Select a Deployment Method from one of the following options:
- Fixed (Default) - The add-in is automatically deployed to the assigned users and they are not allowed to remove it from their ribbon
- Available -Users can install the add-in by clicking the Get More add-ins button on the home ribbon in Outlook
- Optional - The add-in is automatically deployed to the assigned users, but they retain the option to remove it from their ribbon
- Assign Users as one of the following options:
- Select Save.
Note:
The above process enables the add-in at the tenant level for the whole user base. To learn more about the deployment control, go here.
