Adobe Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow: Installation and Configuration Guide (V 2.2)

The Adobe Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow application allows you to send documents for signature using the native functionality of the ServiceNow platform. Acrobat Sign integration with ServiceNow gives you access to the following features and functionalities:

• Send documents for signature to multiple recipients. 
• Track the signing process through its life cycle and identify the expected signers at each stage.
• Retrieve the signed document with an embedded or separate audit trail document.
• Retrieve the form data entered in the document prior to, or during, the signing process.
• Create signature process drafts for an initial review and subsequent submission. Any modifications to the signatories before submission are synchronized into ServiceNow.
• Generate and send email notifications to individuals during the signing process.
• Source the documents for signature from the local files in ServiceNow or from an external source.
• Use document templates with fields that can be filled in using data from ServiceNow records prior to submission. It allows you to use a single template to generate user-specific documents based on a selected subject record, such as an Incident or Service Request.
• Use your Acrobat Sign account's library templates, which are synchronized to ServiceNow and are available for selection during the submission process.

The Adobe Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow: Installation and Customization Guide provides instructions on how to:

• Install Acrobat Sign for the ServiceNow application
• Connect to Acrobat Sign
  • Commercial cloud customers
  • Government cloud customers
• Configure Acrobat Sign for the ServiceNow application
  • Set application properties
  • Configure custom components
  • Configure service portal components
  • Create document templates
  • Synchronise library templates
  • Create local templates
  • Create a service catalog item
  • Create agreement from workflow activity
• Use Acrobat Sign with Contract Management
• Use scripting APIs

Once you install and configure Acrobat Sign for the ServiceNow application, you can use it to send, sign, track, and manage agreements. Refer to Adobe Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow: User Guide.

Install Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow application

You must be an Adobe Acrobat Sign admin and a ServiceNow System Administrator (admin) to be able to install the application on ServiceNow.  

You can request a free trial account for Adobe Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow.

Connect to Acrobat Sign

Adobe Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow application is designed to work with both commercial and government (FedRAMP) accounts. If you are unsure what account you have, follow the instructions for commercial cloud customers.

For commercial cloud customers:

Once the Adobe Acrobat Sign application is installed in ServiceNow, the Adobe Acrobat Sign group or account admins must connect ServiceNow to Adobe Acrobat Sign Commercial Cloud using the steps below:

For Government Cloud Customers:

Once the Adobe Acrobat Sign application is installed in ServiceNow, an Adobe Acrobat Sign Government Cloud group or account admin user can connect ServiceNow to Adobe Acrobat Sign Government Cloud.

Configure Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow application

To see how to configure Acrobat Sign for the ServiceNow application, refer to the following configuration settings:

• Set application properties
• Configure custom components
• Configure service portal components
• Create document templates
• Synchronise library templates
• Create local templates
• Create a service catalog item
• Create agreement from workflow activity

Set application properties

To access and set application properties, navigate to Adobe Acrobat Sign > Administration > Properties.

It displays the following default settings:

• Hostname [x_adosy_as.redirect_host]: If you have a custom instance URL, specify the fully qualified host to be used in the Redirect URI for OAuth and API callbacks (e.g., webhooks).
  By default, this value is empty, and the host is the value held by the "glide.servlet.uri system property.
  It applies to the ServiceNow instance redirect only. If you want to redirect the signer post signature to a different host, provide that host in the Signer Redirect URI (post_sign_uri) property.
• Default Post Sign URL [x_adosy_as.post_sign_uri]: The default place to redirect a user after signing a document in Acrobat Sign. It's used when the Post-sign URI isn't specified during Agreement creation. This URI is relative to the specified instance name, but this can be overridden by including a protocol (such as https://www.adobe.com/), which allows the redirect after signing to go somewhere other than this ServiceNow instance. The sys_id of the created agreement can be injected using "{sys_id}" in the URL. The default value is "/x_adosy_as_agreement_list.do?sysparm_query=requested_byDYNAMIC90d1921e5f510100a9ad2572f2b477fe%5EORsignersDYNAMIC90d1921e5f510100a9ad2572f2b477fe%5Estate=Complete%5EORDERBYDESCsys_created_on" which will take the user to a list of completed agreements.
• Signer Redirect Delay [x_adosy_as.post_sign_delay]: The delay (in seconds) before a user is redirected after they have signed a document in Acrobat Sign. The default value is 3.
• Clickjacking Defense [x_adosy_as.clickjacking_domains]: Provide a comma-separated list of parent domain URLs where documents sent for signature may be included within an iframe, e.g. service-now.com.
  This is required for Government Cloud customers. Leaving this field blank may result in blank pages from Acrobat Sign when shown within a frame.
• Allow Emails from Acrobat Sign [x_adosy_as.send_adobe_sign_emails]: Control whether notification emails are sent by Acrobat Sign during the signing process. The default value is false.
• Popout Draft Agreements [x_adosy_as.popout_draft]: By default, clicking the Review Details button on an agreement will open the draft in Acrobat Sign in the same browser window.
  Set this option to true to open a new window instead. The default value is false.
• Include Audit [x_adosy_as.include_audit]: Control the audit trail that is included in signed documents. The default value is true.
• Use Adobe Acrobat Sign Government Cloud [x_adosy_as.fedramp]: Adobe Government Cloud customers must enable this property to have Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow use Acrobat Sign Government Cloud services. The default value is false.
• Connection Login Hint [x_adosy_as.login_hint]: The login_hint value used when first connecting to Adobe Acrobat Sign Government Cloud. This will auto-populate the "Connect to Acrobat Sign" page, which is usually the account admin user's email. The default value is empty.
• Agreement Activity Formatter Fields [glide.ui.x_adosy_as_agreement_activity.fields]: Set which fields should be shown in the activity format shown on the agreement record.
  The default value is "name, state, status,agreement_id,compose_url,post_sign_uri,etag".
• "My Agreements" Query [x_adosy_as.my_agreements_query]: The query to use when showing my agreements in places like the Portal. The default value is "requested_byDYNAMIC90d1921e5f510100a9ad2572f2b477fe^ORsignersDYNAMIC90d1921e5f510100a9ad2572f2b477fe" which returns agreements where the user is the requestor or a signer.
• Multipart File Extension [x_adosy_as.multipart_extension]: The filename extension for the temporary Multipart File attachments. The default (recommended) value is "mpfd".
• Application logging [x_adosy_as.logging.verbosity]: Control system logging. The default value is "info".
• Debug Connect [x_adosy_as.connect_debug]: Show diagnostic alerts when connecting to Acrobat Sign. The default value is false.

The default redirect URL property applies to any agreement where the value in the ‘Post sign URI’ field has not been set.

The remaining properties manage whether notifications are sent by Acrobat Sign during the signing process (default = No) and whether the Audit trail is included with the signed documents (default = Yes).

Configure custom components

Adobe Acrobat Sign application contains custom components that can be configured as per your requirements. Refer to the list of components below to see how to modify each.

Configure service portal components

The Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow application comes with the following Service Portal elements that can be used or copied with your own Service Portals.

Create document templates

A Document template defines a template that can be selected for inclusion in an agreement.  A template can be used to offer a standard document that can be reused for many individual agreements. The ‘Source document’ record references a template to make the features of that template available to the associated agreement.

The template can be local to the ServiceNow instance or it can be a Library template whose details are synchronized from the connected Adobe Acrobat Sign account.

Synchronise Library Templates

After the application is installed and configured, admins can synchronize the Library templates. An Adobe Acrobat Sign Library template is defined within the Acrobat Sign account and its details are synchronized into ServiceNow.  The defining document of a Library template is also stored in the connected Acrobat Sign account and so no uploading is needed for submission.

To synchronize the Library templates to ServiceNow:

1. Navigate to Adobe Acrobat Sign > Administration > Document templates.
2. Select Refresh Library.

It updates the list view with Library Templates from the connected Acrobat Sign account.

Create Local Templates

The defining document of a Local template is held as an attachment record within ServiceNow and must be uploaded to Acrobat Sign as part of the submission process.

A template’s document may or may not contain form fields that need to be pre-filled using data from the subject record of an agreement. You must use a template if a document contains such form fields.

Create a Service Catalogue Item

Acrobat Sign for ServiceNow allows you to create new agreements that users can access through the Service Catalog by creating a Record Producer. You can configure the Record Producer to collect any data you would like to merge into the document and automatically create and send the agreement to the user. 

Users with catalog_admin or admin can create a catalog item. The steps below explain how to create a catalog item called Record Producer. You can replicate the steps for creating other catalog items.

Note: Make sure that the Adobe Acrobat Sign application is not selected when configuring your instance.

The process of creating each Record Producer may differ based on the specific requirements for the Document fields, template, variable, and more; however, the same principles apply.  The example in this guide shows how to create a Parking Permit Agreement. 

To create a Record Producer:

Create an Agreement from a Workflow Activity

To add documents for signature to existing Catalog items, you can add a task to your workflow that generates the agreement and a catalog task that assigns it to a user for their signature.

The following example demonstrates how you can use the Acrobat Sign application, however, the specific details of the configuration steps may differ according to the requirements of your process.

To create an agreement from a workflow activity, you must configure the following components: 

• Catalog Task: It creates the agreement, submits it for signature, and assigns a task to the signer.
• Script Action: It responds to the event fired when the agreement is signed and then closes the task, providing the feedback loop and allowing the workflow to move on. 

To create a Catalog task:

1. In Workflow Editor, select the Core tab.
2. Navigate to Core Activities > Tasks and then drag the Catalog Task activity to the appropriate place in your workflow.
3. Give the task a Name and set its Priority.
4. Set Wait for completion to true.
5. In the Script section, set the Advanced flag to true, and then in the Advanced script field, write your code. An example code is given below.
6. Select Update.

You can now set up a Script Action to automatically set the catalog task to the Closed Complete state when the agreement has been completed. You must configure your Script Action to be triggered by the x_adosy_as.agreement.complete event on the Agreement table.

To create a new Script Action:

1. Navigate to System Policy > Events > Script Actions and click New.
2. On the new Script Action page:
   1. Give the Script Action a name.
   2. Set the Event name to x_adosy_as.agreement.complete.
   3. Select the Active checkbox. 
   4. In the Script field, copy and paste the script from the Script Action: Sample Code below.
3. Right-click on the header bar and select Save.

Script Action: Sample Code

// Script Action to set the catalog task state to Close Complete

(function () {

  var catalog_task = current.subject_id.getRefRecord();

  if (!catalog_task.isValidRecord() || catalog_task.getTableName() != 'sc_task') {

    return;

  }

  catalog_task.state = 3; // Closed Complete

  catalog_task.update();

})();

Use Acrobat Sign with Contract Management

You can use Acrobat Sign with records other than the Task-based records as described above in Custom Components. The instructions below demonstrate how to use Acrobat Sign for Contract Management. The specific details of the configuration steps may differ according to the requirements of your process.

To use Acrobat Sign for Contract management, you must configure the following two components:

• UI Action: It creates the agreement and submits it for signature.  Once the Agreement has been signed an event is fired. 
• Script Action: It responds to the event and provides a feedback loop, moving the process along and updating the Contract. 

Note: Only users with the ‘ui_action_admin’ or ‘admin’ roles can define UI actions. Users with ‘admin’ role can only define a script action.

Use scripting APIs

You can easily extent the Adobe Acrobat Sign application to work with any of your processes using the internal APIs. The API is accessible through the x_adosy_as namespace.