Accelerate Time to Approval with DocuSign eSignature for Approvals in Microsoft Teams

Think about all the times you’ve sent a document for review and approval. It’s a lot, isn’t it? That’s because getting approvals is fundamental to your organization’s processes. In legal, sales, HR, procurement and many more functions, approvals are everywhere, and if not digitized, can be a bottleneck.

That’s why we are excited to announce support for DocuSign eSignature as an approved electronic signature provider for approvals in Microsoft Teams. The Microsoft Approvals app in Teams allows users to create, manage and share approvals directly from Teams. With this integration you can create an electronic signature approval within the Approvals app, enabling you to streamline approval requests while keeping up to date on the status of the approval by receiving notifications.

This new integration follows our recently introduced integration, DocuSign eSignature for Microsoft Teams, which features a DocuSign chatbot within Teams.

“We integrate with various applications across Microsoft such as Dynamics 365, SharePoint, Outlook and much more. This gives our customers multiple opportunities to complete their agreement process from end to end by leveraging DocuSign and Microsoft together. We are thrilled to continue to innovate with Microsoft with the newest addition of DocuSign eSignature for approvals in Microsoft Teams,” said Marshall Nam, Product Management Director, DocuSign. 

“We’re excited about the DocuSign eSignature integration with approvals in Microsoft Teams. This brings efficiency to the customer approval process by enabling them to create, manage and share an approval that requires a signature right from Teams.” - Daniel Canning, Director, Microsoft Teams Platform at Microsoft.

Keep reading for a walk through of how you can use DocuSign eSignature for Microsoft Teams Approvals app today.

Create, manage and share an approval that requires a signature

To access the Microsoft Teams Approvals app, select the Approvals app icon from the Teams side bar. You can see a list of approvals sent and received, along with their status.

When you want to send a document for approval, click New Approval Request, select the dropdown arrow to choose DocuSign as your e-sign provider. Enter the name of the Approval, which will also be the name of your DocuSign envelope and enter any additional details for the recipients. The recipient can be anyone with an email address, regardless of whether or not they have Teams. 

Next, select the documents to send along with the recipients. You can also add a signing order if you like. Once you’ve prepared the approval, you will proceed to DocuSign to tag the documents with signature fields and other fields to complete. However, you can skip this step by using DocuSign eSignature templates that pre-tag documents and define recipient roles. Each time you send, you only need to specify the new recipients. All this can be done natively in Approvals, so you don’t need to spend time switching between apps.

When all fields have been added, send the envelope to your recipients. In the Approvals app you can then monitor the status of your approval, see who needs to sign next, add comments, or edit the approval. Once it’s completed, you’ll receive a notification in Teams.

From legal, sales, HR, and procurement, your team has many ways to streamline approvals with DocuSign eSignature for approvals in Microsoft Teams. Some common use cases include:

• Loan documents
• Maintenance requests
• Patient intake forms
• Patient consent forms
• Shipping requests  
• New hire forms
• Insurance claims 
• Power of attorney
• End of life forms

Get more value across all your Microsoft solutions

With integrations across Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365, DocuSign eSignature is everywhere you want it to be within the world of Microsoft applications. You can send agreements and approvals for e-signature directly from DocuSign for Dynamics 365. Or easily prepare and send documents for e-signature using Microsoft applications like Word, SharePoint or Outlook. Or use the Power Automate integration so you can streamline processes between DocuSign and your Microsoft applications. Our new integration with Approvals works seamlessly with these existing integrations to drive additional productivity.

To get started with Microsoft Teams today download the app or browse our support article.

Written by Melika Ardestani, Associate Product Marketing Manager at DocuSign.