Comments: Real-Time Collaboration in Agreements
As organizations progress further into the digital age, real-time collaboration has become more and more important to move business forward while maintaining alignment across teams. In digital agreements, the ability to leave comments allows parties to communicate directly within the context of the agreement, accelerating the path to finalization and signature.
If a signer has a question or wants to negotiate the terms of an agreement, leaving comments helps ensure that all parties stay up to date on questions and changes.
Examples of when leaving comments in an agreement might be helpful:
- Sales order transactions
- Subcontractor agreements
- Auto sales agreements
- Legal agreements
- Real estate transactions such as closing and offer documents
- Employment contracts for new-hires
Using comments in DocuSign
Comments are useful for both signing and sending documents for signature. When a signer is reviewing a document and has questions about it or disagrees with something in it, they can post a comment in the document. When sending a document for signature, senders can post a comment in the document to provide additional information to recipients. Leaving a comment allows you to tag the appropriate party to review your communications and sends them an email notification to review. This streamlines the process of getting agreements signed quicker.
All comments get saved as part of the transaction so you can review what was discussed internally or externally with the collaborators of the agreement. By being able to review the comments of an agreement, the sender and signer can keep track of what was discussed. Comments are also available on the DocuSign eSignature mobile app.
How to enable comments in DocuSign
If you’d like the ability to use comments but it’s not yet enabled for your account, follow these steps to enable comments:
- Go to www.docusign.com and log in to your DocuSign account.
- In your DocuSign account, click the account menu drop down in the upper right corner and select Go to Admin, which opens DocuSign Admin.
- In the DocuSign Admin console, on the left under Signing and Sending, click Comments.
- On the right, under Comments Settings, check Enable comments in envelopes sent from this account checkbox and then click SAVE.
Now that you know how to enable comments, here are some quick tips to help you glean maximum value out of the feature.
Best practices for using comments
Control whether comment text is included in email notifications
Depending on your type of organization, you may or may not want comment text to appear outside the DocuSign envelopes. Comment text is included by default in emails, but if you are an account admin, you can turn this ability off and on.
To control whether comment and reply text is included in email notifications:
- Go to www.docusign.com and log in to your DocuSign account.
- In your DocuSign account, click the account menu drop down in the upper right corner and select Go to Admin, which opens DocuSign Admin.
- On the right under Comments Settings:
- To enable the inclusion of comment and reply text in email notifications, check Include comment text in email notifications when a comment is posted, then click SAVE.
- To disable the inclusion of comment and reply text in email notifications, uncheck Include comment text in email notifications when a comment is posted, then click SAVE.
Control frequency of comment notifications on envelopes you send and receive
Like to keep your email notifications at a minimum? Prefer to be pinged every time there’s a new development with an envelope? Either way, with Comments, you’re in complete control of the number of notifications you receive.
Here’s how to control the frequency:
- Go to www.docusign.com and log in to your DocuSign account.
- In your DocuSign account, click the account menu drop-down in the upper right corner and select My Preferences.
- On the Preferences page, on the left under SIGNING AND SENDING, select Notifications.
On the right, under Sending Notifications:
- To enable comment notifications, check “A comment is posted in an envelope I've sent.”
- To disable comment notifications, uncheck “A comment is posted in an envelope I've sent.”
On the right, under Recipient Notifications:
- To enable comment notifications, check “A comment is posted in an envelope that's been sent to me.”
- To disable comment notifications, uncheck “A comment is posted in an envelope that's been sent to me.”
You can further customize the frequency of notifications by choosing whether you are notified every time one of your recipients comments or replies to a comment or whether the recipient chooses to reply only to you.
- To receive notification for all comments and replies, choose “All comments.”
- To receive notification of comments sent only to you, choose “Only comments that mention me or are private to me.”
- At the top (or bottom), click SAVE.
Accessing the Notification Center
- Go to www.docusign.com and log in to your DocuSign account.
- After logging into your DocuSign account, click the Notification Center icon in the upper right. If there is a red dot next to the Notification Center icon, it means you have a new comment or reply.
- In Notification Center, select the comment or reply you want to view.
- You can sort comments by selecting All or Unread on the left.
- Selecting a comment in the notifications list opens the document and takes you to the comment or reply.
Want to learn even more about how comments can make coming to agreement simpler and easier? Look no further than our Comments Support Overview.
You can also reach out to support here for help in enabling this feature.