It is recommend that all users configure their personal user ID first, including administrators. Once your profile is verified, proceed to the Admin section and configure the account settings.

Users

When you first log in to Acrobat Sign, take a minute to review your personal user information. This information is used in several templates, so it’s important to ensure it is correct.

Mouse over your name in the upper right corner to open the menu, and click My Profile

The profile page shows the specific values that Acrobat Sign will use when personalizing any of your transactions. Of particular interest are:

Your full name – Used in email communications and for your default typeset signature.
Your job title – Automatically populates if you ever have a Title field to fill in.
Your company name – Automatically populates if you ever have a Company field to fill in. This should be your company's full legal name.
Time Zone - Time/Date stamps will be cast in your time zone for better clarity when running reports.

If you need to adjust any of the content, click the Edit Profile button, make the required changes, and then Save your edits.

Acrobat Sign allows for three signature styles, depending on your personal or business requirements:

Script-like font: The default value and the favored style currently. A font is applied to your name to achieve the appearance of a handwritten signature.

If this option is your choice, no explicit configuration is required.

Customized signatures

Create your unique signature by navigating to Personal Preferences > My Signature.

Click the Create button to open the signature panel and select the method to create your signature:

Biometric: Draw your signature with a mouse, a stylus, or your finger! Drawing your signature on a tablet with your finger gives the best overall result.
- The Mobile option allows you to cast the signature from the device you are currently on to a touch-enabled phone.
Signature Image: If you have an actual image of your signature, you can upload that to the system, and Acrobat Sign applies that image as your signature when you sign.

Click Apply when you have created an adequate signature.

For power users who really want to stay in touch with their transactions, you can time milestones that can trigger an email to your inbox, or an alert that can be delivered in a report.

To get to your notifications page, navigate to Personal Preferences > My Notifications

Some quick definitions:

Events: Actions that happen to a transaction (Sending, Viewing, Signing, and so on).
Alerts: Expected actions that don’t happen within a specified time frame (not viewed in eight hours, viewed but not signed in three hours, and so on).

Both events and alerts can be configured to notify in two ways. You have the option to select neither, one, or both by checking the configuration options. These options are:

E-mail: Selecting this option sends you an e-mail every time the event or alert takes place. Depending on your volume, this option can be “spammy,” so we recommend setting this option with your e-mail volume in mind.
Event: Events are flagged to show on your Home tab (in the Events/Alerts section) and will be listed in any reports that you create on the Events/Alerts page.

Also notice that there are two tabs for these events/alerts.

My Events/Alerts is the set of options for transactions where you are the sender.
Shared Events/Alerts are the settings for any other user ID that has shared their account to you. To configure Shared Events/Alerts, navigate to Personal Preferences > Shared Events/Alerts.

Reporting can be configured at the bottom of the page to send you a summary of the events you have checked, and that report can be sent once a week, every work day, or every day of the week, as you like.

The business and enterprise service levels allow users to create a personal footer, like a signature file in e-mail.

If the option is enabled by your Account Admin, you can set it by navigating to: Personal Preferences > My Email Footer

If you do not see the option, your account administrator can enable it at the account or group level.

This footer is placed near the bottom of your transaction e-mails, but above any account level footers:

There are two default language options to set:

My Language Preference - Determines the default language used when delivering email to you, as well as the language used for on-screen navigation.
Signing Language - Determines the default language used for emails and on-screen instructions for recipients outside of your Acrobat Sign account.

Admins

Welcome, administrators!

Hopefully the configuration of your personal user ID has gone well and you are ready for the larger, account-wide decisions.

The below descriptions are relatively long, but getting your account set up properly will ensure that your senders and signers have the smoothest time adopting your process, and will reduce the questions that inevitably come with change after deployment.

Note: Not all the options available to you are fully covered, so contact Support if you have any questions.

The In Product Messaging and Guidance feature enables Acrobat Sign to enhance the product experience via a third party to provide critical in-app notifications, collect feedback and usage data, and offer behavior-based guidance or onboarding.

Access to the controls can be found on the Global Settings tab of the account-level admin interface.

Enabling this feature allows Adobe to push notifications directly into the Acrobat Sign interface when you log in and provides access to support documentation from within the application (by clicking the floating question mark bubble).

Set up your external archive

Administrators can configure the Adobe Acrobat Sign External Archive feature to automatically deliver a copy of the Signed and Filed email for every successfully completed agreement to an additional email address. This automatic copy will always contain the signed agreement PDF, the audit report PDF, and the field data CSV (if one exists), irrespective of the account/group settings that govern if these documents should be attached.

The external archive can be configured at the account and group level, with group-level settings overriding the account settings. Accounts that leverage Users in Multiple Groups can effectively use the group-level configuration when groups are used to define specific document workflows. (For example, a Legal group can include their legal department in all completed agreements and remove any general archive address that might be configured at the account level.)

Configuration of the archive only requires a valid email address to be entered in the Send an extra copy of every signed agreement input field in the Global Settings tab of the administrator's menu. Any address can be used, including third-party applications that accept an inbound email.

The External Archive tab includes instructions on finding the inbound email address for the Box and Evernote applications which can be used to push the agreements into those applications.

Note:

Users with Individual tier accounts do not have access to the Global Settings menu tab. For the Individual tier of service, the Send an extra copy of every agreement input field is found on the External Archive page.

Add an email to the external archive interface

The option for an external archive can be configured at the account and/or group levels.

Log in as an administrator and navigate to Account Settings > Global Settings > Send an extra copy of every signed agreement to the following email addresses
Select the Add email address button.

Users with Individual accounts need to navigate to the External Archive tab:
An overlay opens to accept the email address for the archive.

Enter the email address twice (to ensure the value is correct).

Save the email address.

Note:

If the domain of the archive email is new to the account, a challenge is issued to verify that the archive email address is accurate.

Be very sure your archive email is correct. You do not want to automatically send a copy of every agreement to the wrong person.
Click Save.
The email address is stored as a discrete object in the email field.
- Multiple addresses can be saved up to a maximum of 15.
- Selecting the X to the right of an email address deletes the email address from the field.
Add all email addresses that you want to receive the signed agreement documentation automatically.
Select Save at the bottom right corner of the window when all emails have been added to save the configuration.

Signature preferences!

There are many options to consider with these settings, so let’s dig in!

Navigate to Account > Signature Preferences

The first two settings control the automated formatting of the line that the signature sits on, and the signature data that is inserted under the line:

Use well-formatted signatures and initials
- Enabling this places the line and signature content under it
- Disabling this places just the signature without the markings that indicate the signature is electronic

Dynamically adjust line below the signature and initials
- Enable this to dynamically adjust the line under the signature to be just a few pixels longer than the actual signature/initials
- Disabling this prints the full line for the length of the original signature field

Allow recipients to sign and initial by

The next section controls how your recipients can apply their signature. In general, unless you have a specific business purpose to constrain the options, we recommend allowing recipients to apply their signature in the manner they prefer.

There are three options:

Typing their name and initials - Typing in the name is the easiest process for most signers as it requires no extra action. The recipient types in their name and a script-like font is applied.
- Dynamically choose signing font - There are multiple script-like fonts available in the Acrobat Sign system. By default, they are applied in a fixed order. If this option is enabled, then the start point for the font used is randomized
Drawing a handwritten signature and initials on the screen using mouse, stylus or their finger - If this option is enabled, recipients will have the option to physically draw their signature.
Uploading an image of their signature and initials - If enabled, recipients will be allowed to upload an image of their signature from their local system.

Allow recipients to use their saved signature

This section of options dictates if your recipients can use an existing saved signature (Biometric and Image-based signatures are saved). If you elect to disallow use of saved signatures, the recipient will have to explicitly type, draw or upload their signature, depending on the types of signature you allow.

The options are:

All recipients - If selected, all recipients will be allowed to use their saved signatures.
Internal recipients - This option will allow only the recipients that also exist as users in your Acrobat Sign account to use their saved signatures.
No one - Disallows use of a saved signature by all recipients.

There is an additional check box in this section:

Allow users in my account to upload an image and save to their profile as their signature and initials - Enabling this option will allow users in your Acrobat Sign account to upload an image of their signature in their Personal Preferences section.

Adding your company branding is an excellent way to customize Acrobat Sign for the users in your account, as well as your signers.

Company name and URL hostname

In this section, you will set the company name and a hostname for your account. These may seem basic, but they will personalize your account.

These two settings are Account-wide and cannot be adjusted at the Group level.

Company Name

The value you enter into this field is automatically populated into Company Name field for new users when they are created in the account.

By default, Acrobat Sign permits users to edit their personal settings, and this includes the Company Name value for their individual users.

If you would like to update the Company Name value in the profile of all users in your account:

Check the Set company name for all users in account box
Click Save

All user profiles will adopt the value in the Company Name field as the Company value in their user profiles.

Note:

Checking Set company name for all users in account is a one-time replace action for all users in your account.

Once the page is saved, all of the users are updated, and the checkmark is cleared to allow the action to be triggered again if needed (as users still have the authority to change their Company Name values).

Hostname

Setting the hostname for your account changes the URL your users log in to and the URL where agreements are hosted for your signers.

The result is a customized URL with your hostname.

Upload a logo

Administrators at the account or group level can upload an image to display instead of the default Adobe Acrobat Sign logo. This image appears in the upper-left corner of the screen for the users in your account when they are logged in.

Note:

If you have any issues getting your image to appear correctly, ensure that the image you're using is exactly 60 pixels tall, and up to 200 pixels wide.

Download the template below to help with making your logo the correct size.

Download

Get file

Logo Template.png

As an account admin, navigate to Account Settings > Account Setup.
Select Upload logo and browse to the logo file that you want to use.
Save the configuration.

A success message is displayed when the logo file is uploaded.

Refresh your browser.

The logo will now appear for all of your users.

The Global Settings section of the Account tab is one of the more feature-rich sections, and all the settings are use-case specific.

Below we briefly describe each option and explain our recommendation, but it’s entirely likely that your use case will vary from "most common usage."

Navigate to Account > Account Settings > Global Settings.

Attach a CSV with form data to the sender's signed agreement e-mails
If you are using forms and want to get a CSV of the field data for every signed document, then check the box. However, individual CSVs for every transaction can be a bit unwieldy.

If you need to collect data or push data back into your CRM, then you might be better served taking the time to build out an API solution.

Limited Document Visibility
This feature allows you to reveal designated files in your transaction only to your various signers. Getting the most out of Limited Document Visibility requires that you have a strong understanding of your signature flow relative to the documents you are sending and how you attach those documents.

If you are thinking that you want to send a large, multi-file transaction to multiple signers and you want to hide parts of that document from one or more signers, then this setting is for you! Here’s a quick video if you are still undecided.

Attach a PDF copy of the signed document in e-mails sent
Once your transaction is complete, everyone involved will get a copy by default. This setting allows you to change that so that copies will be sent to internal only, external only, both, or neither.

How you set this setting will likely depend on the nature of your documents. If you are collecting sensitive information, it may be worthwhile not to e-mail out the signed copies. Doing this is the best option for security, but it introduces the possibility that your customers will contact you for a copy of the document. In these cases, we recommend having the signer register with Acrobat Sign for a free account and pull a copy direct from Acrobat Sign.

Attach audit report to completed documents
If you need audit reports attached to the copy of the signed document we e-mail to you, then enable this at least for the Sender.

Merge multiple documents into one document after signing
When you upload multiple files for one transaction, Acrobat Sign concatenates these files into one PDF before sending it for signature.

This setting dictates whether your Signed and Filed e-mails contain that one large PDF, or whether the document is split back into several files.

Send an extra copy of every signed agreement to these e-mail addresses

It’s the External Archive again, but this setting can be configured at the group level (for business and enterprise-level customers), which allows you to route completed Sales contracts to Accounting, or completed NDAs to the Legal team (for example).

Upload Signed Document
If you allow signers to print the document, sign it, and fax it back, you should enable this setting. Someday, someone will print off a document and mail it to you, and if this setting isn’t enabled, you won’t be able to close out the transaction in Acrobat Sign.
Delegation for users in my account
Delegation in this case means permitting a different signer (e-mail address) to sign the document in your stead. Delegating does not remove access from the original party, it just grants another user authority to sign.

In general, we advocate for making the signing process as easy as possible, and that means allowing delegation. However, some use cases have a strong need for only a designated party to sign.

Note:

Keep in mind that the setting refers to users in your Acrobat Sign account (not everyone at your company). It’s possible that your signers will not have Acrobat Sign user IDs in your account, and those parties would not be covered by this setting.

Delegation for users outside my account
Just like the above setting, but this feature is specific for users that are not in your Acrobat Sign account.
Authority to Sign
This setting dictates what the default access to sign a document is for the users in your Acrobat Sign account.
In general we recommend allowing everyone to sign by default. If you intend to use Acrobat Sign for any HR-type purpose, you definitely need to let everyone sign.
If you elect to deny everyone signing privileges by default, you will need to explicitly enable the signers that do need to sign.
Tip!: As the Admin, you are not grandfathered in as a signer. So if you need to sign documents, and you are denying signing by default, the next thing you should do is go to Users and Groups, click your e-mail address, and enable your signing privileges.
Set a default time zone to use for agreements created by users in this account
This sets the time zone for the time/date stamps on your transactions.
Group admin-related settings
Business and enterprise service level customers can have groups, and if you have groups, you might want to have admins for just those groups.
These settings will allow group admins to add new users or change their group level settings to customize how users in teir groups can configure agreements..

Note:

Acrobat Sign works on a parent-child relationship model, and groups are the child objects of the account. This means that a new group will inherit the account properties. It also means that changes at the group level will override the account-level settings.

Send settings are the features that are exposed to your sending agents on the Send tab. This section is dedicated to all the configurations that are available on that page.

Much like the Global settings, these are very use-case specific.

It’s also a bit long, so grab a beverage and navigate to Account > Account Settings > Send Settings.

Show Send Page after logging in
This setting will route your users to the Send tab after they log in to Acrobat Sign (instead of the Home tab).
If you are experiencing annoying lag when first logging in, it’s likely because of the scripts that run on the Home tab to make those cool reporting dials reflect accurate data. If your users would rather get right into the sending process and not review their Home tab data, this is the feature for you!
Recipient roles
Does your workflow require the approval of one or more people, or do you have a recipient expected to fill in form content without needing to apply a signature? Enabling recipient roles allows you to build complex workflows with specialized roles defined.

Note:

Forms can be designed to require an approver to fill in field information and still not sign the document.

Attaching Documents
This setting enables all the various channels that permit a user to attach a document. If you have a strong need for version control over your documents, then you will likely want to disable everything except for the library where the current versions of your forms are.
Languages
This setting allows users to set external signers' signing language on the Send page.

Message Templates
A great time saver for high-volume agents. The message templates will allow you to set a new default message and further define a large array of other custom message templates. If you find that you are sending the same documents with the same message multiple times a day, take some time to configure this.
Private Messages to Recipients
It allows sends to include a private message to each recipient.
Allowed Signature Types
By default, only e-signature is enabled. However, there are still a fair number of people in this world that want to print and fax back their documents. If you might have some customers that feel this way, enable the Fax Signature option.
Sender Signature Settings
These settings are designed for cases in which the sender will be the countersigner for the document. And if you are allowing senders to countersign, it’s worth setting up the defaults per your workflow just to minimize the amount the senders have to adjust in each transaction.
Reminders
If your process requires that you set up reminders, this setting allows you to configure the default reminder iteration and message, further reducing the cycle time for your senders.
Signed Document Password Protection
With this enabled, the user would have to enter a password before they could open the signed PDF or view it online.
It’s a little friction, but good security.
Signer Identification Options
Acrobat Sign allows for several second-factor authentication methods for signers. Depending on your use case, you may want to allow one or more of these options, and you may or may not want to allow senders to pick their method.

Document Expiration
If your use case includes "windows of opportunity," like a special price that is only available for the next XX days, then you can define that window and force the document to expire if not signed in the required time.
If you do enable this option, it is recommended that you consider enabling the option Allow modification of expiration settings after document is sent. You don’t have to extend the deadline, but it’s nice to have the option.
Preview, position signatures or add form fields
If you find that you are adding fields to documents on the fly, then you may want to enable the drag-and-drop field tool by default. However, if you are working with version-controlled documents, you will likely want to remove the option for users to adjust fields.
Signing Order
Most documents (that we see) are signed in sequential order, and that is the default value. However, if you find that your most common workflow leverages a parallel signature process where everyone is asked to sign at the same time, you can configure that here.
You also have the option to allow the sender to pick which workflow is best for their transactions if you have a foot in both worlds.

Upload email header and footer images

Business and enterprise service plans can upload email header and footer images to further personalize or brand your account. These images appear in the emails to your recipients.

Email images installed at the account level are inherited by all groups in the account. Installing a group-level email image will override the account-level image.

Note:

Email header and footer images are available to business and enterprise-level accounts only.

If you have any issues getting your image to appear correctly, ensure that the image you're using is exactly 600 pixels wide and up to 200 pixels tall. And, make sure to save it in JPG, GIF, or PNG format.

Download the template below to help with making your logo the correct size.

Download

Get file

Email header/footer template

Log in as an administrator, and navigate to: Account Settings > Email Settings
Select Browse to search for and choose the image.

If you need to remove the image, select the Clear button.
Save the uploaded images.

The uploaded header image appears at the very top of the email templates that Acrobat Sign sends to your recipients. The footer image is at the very bottom.

Acrobat Sign security settings match the general password security setting you will find for any application that you may have managed — with a couple of oddball document settings.

To set up your security, navigate to Account > Account Settings > Security Settings.

Single Sign-on Settings
Do your users authenticate from either an Adobe or Google user base? If so, you should enable the appropriate setting and disable any that you would not expect to use.
Remember-me Settings
It allows remembering the user's login details for a specified time period. Choose the time period from the drop-down list.
Login Password Policy - For users authenticating to the legacy Acrobat Sign identity system
This setting sets the parameters for how frequently the password has to be reset, and for how many historic passwords Acrobat Sign will remember to prevent recurring passwords from being installed.
Login Password Strength - For users authenticating to the legacy Acrobat Sign identity system
The required strength of your passwords is key to ensuring your account security, and we recommend setting this value as high as your users will tolerate.
PDF Encryption Type
The key to PDF encryption levels is having a good idea of what version of Reader your signers are likely to have installed. The more advanced encryptions require more modern versions of Reader.
Generally speaking, if your target signer is marginally tech savvy, then you can fairly safely set this value to 128-bit AES. Acrobat 7 was released at the beginning of 2005, and most people have upgraded since then.
API
It enables you to allow Uncertified partner applications to access data from this account. Also, allow users who aren't account administrators to develop applications that use the Acrobat Sign API.
Allowed IP Ranges
If you have concerns about external parties attempting to access your users, restricting the IP range is an excellent defensive measure. Just make sure no one has to work from home or on a mobile device off your owned networks.
Account Sharing
Account Sharing is a great feature for managing agents that report to you, but it may be wise to control to who they share their accounts. Many admins elect to only create account shares when creating new users and disable the account-wide setting.
Signer Identity Verification
Should your users have to log in prior to signing a document? Depending on your use case, this might be a good security check.
Agreement Signing Password
It allows you to apply a password policy when protecting document signing or viewing.
Document Password Strength
Specify a password strength for the Agreement Signing Password.

Are you going to use the API? If you have a developer and want to integrate Acrobat Sign into your existing CRM system (or anything else API enabled), then you may want to consider the option.

Acrobat Sign supports a REST API:

Navigate to Account > Acrobat Sign API.

Using Adobe Document Cloud APIs to access user data requires OAuth Tokens.

You can create an integration key if you have a legacy application that does not support OAuth.

If you do not see the link to create an integration key, contact Support.

Also on this page, you will find

Additionally, once the API is enabled, you will see a new link to the left for the API Request Log. This log will show you the inbound XML from your API calls and can be invaluable in troubleshooting if you have any code-based issues.

The REST API is available through the API Applications option.

Once on the page, click the Create a new application link, give your application a name, and click the Create Application button.

Your new Application ID and Secret will generate and display immediately.

Breaking up your users into functional groups can be hugely helpful, especially if you have different signature requirements or reporting structures that need to be observed.

Luckily, creating a group in Acrobat Sign is amazingly simple. Just navigate to
Account > Groups.

Once on the Group page, click the + button at the upper-right corner of the page and enter the new group name into the field.

There is also a link to configure the settings for the group - click the row to see the Group Settings link. These settings are nearly identical to the Global settings you configured at the account level, but because groups are the child object of the account, the group settings will override the account settings.

You will also notice that the group name is always updateable, so if you have to change group names, it's no problem at all.

Note:

If you have purchased an Acrobat Sign for a small business plan, use the Admin Console to manage users and entitlements associated with them. You can also assign multiple administrators to help manage your team or the functional behavior of Acrobat Sign

Finally, it's time to add users!

The modern user administration is managed in the Adobe Admin Console, and there are multiple methods to populate your organization with users and entitle them to use Acrobat Sign.

The Admin Console is documented in the larger Adobe user management documentation. Below are several of the most relevant pages depending on how you intend to configure you r organization

Get help faster and easier

New user?

Quick account setup guide

Welcome to the quick account setup guide for Adobe Acrobat Sign

Users

Customized signatures

Admins

Set up your external archive

Add an email to the external archive interface

Allow recipients to sign and initial by

Allow recipients to use their saved signature

Upload a logo

Upload email header and footer images

More like this

Get help faster and easier

Ask the Community

Contact Us