How to Use DocuSign for ServiceNow

In the age of digital workflows and far-reaching enterprises, ensuring smooth agreements and easy form signatures across the systems where you work is more important than ever. If your business uses ServiceNow to enhance collaboration among departments, DocuSign eSignature can simplify paperwork and connect the contract processes of your back-office teams within one platform.

When businesses integrate the power of ServiceNow and DocuSign, they optimize their IT, employee and customer workflows through the intelligent automation of the agreement process—saving time, reducing errors and delighting everyone from employees to vendors to customers.

How DocuSign for ServiceNow streamlines workflows

Any time an employee makes a request that requires an electronic signature or consent, ServiceNow can connect different departments to automatically send electronic signature requests and securely share data through the DocuSign integration. Use DocuSign to increase the productivity of your ServiceNow workflows when:

• Signing legal documents like NDAs and authorization forms
• Onboarding new hires
• Generating customer agreements 
• Approving employee policy exception requests
• Automating procurement contracts and purchase-order agreements
• Providing consent for background checks
• Completing exit forms and updating compensation plans
• Authorizing internal transfers and employee lifecycle events
• Validating offboarding documents

Reduce onboarding complexities and work better together

DocuSign eSignature modernizes the agreement process so businesses can manage signature requests within the ServiceNow platform without having to switch between systems. Let’s compare the process of obtaining signatures before and after businesses integrate the DocuSign eSignature into the ServiceNow platform.

Before the DocuSign integration, generating agreements went something like this: the initiator of an agreement would download a contract from ServiceNow’s contracts dashboard and email it to each of the intended signers. Every contract recipient would have to print the contract, sign it and upload it into ServiceNow. Then, after all of the signatures had been successfully submitted and stored, everyone who had downloaded the contract would have to remember to delete any local copies from their personal computers. This was a headache-inducing process, rife with opportunities for human error. What’s more: any mistakes would mean the signer had to start all over again.

Once businesses implement the DocuSign integration, it’s a different story. Now, after the initiator of an agreement selects a contract on ServiceNow, they can use DocuSign to automatically send the contract for approvals to vendors and executives alike. Instead of having to print the contract out, all recipients can sign digitally from any device using DocuSign eSignature, and the DocuSign Agreement Cloud will collect each signature when they’re finished. The ServiceNow platform then saves all of the contract signatures in one cloud-based repository, enabling those with authorized access to quickly retrieve without having to sort through paper-based documents.

By automating and simplifying document approvals, DocuSign enables businesses to optimize ServiceNow workflows and promote cross-department partnerships when, for example, onboarding new hires. From signing legal documents like intellectual property agreements and NDAs to acquiring new IT equipment, DocuSign for ServiceNow allows employees to send and fulfill requests in one place.

In the case of a new company hire, HR can create an onboarding to-do list, allowing for the intersection of different departmental workflows. Legal can add a DocuSign template to ServiceNow, automatically sending eSignature requests to recipients, and IT can add a list of required equipment to the platform. From there, HR can map the document and equipment over to the list of onboarding tasks for easy fulfillment. All the new hire has to do is provide digital consent.

Reap the rewards of integrating DocuSign with ServiceNow

Promote teamwork, save time, reduce errors—the ease of obtaining eSignatures with DocuSign for ServiceNow has powerful benefits for businesses of any size. Maximize the potential of each of these applications with an integration that allows you to:

Facilitate departmental collaboration

DocuSign for ServiceNow spans an entire enterprise, connecting disparate departments and systems that need forms signed. With its easy scalability, DocuSign for ServiceNow workflows can expand where and when you need it to—in HR, IT, legal, procurement, sales and the C-suite—easing  collaboration and unifying stakeholders.

Consolidate processes and enhance oversight

Visibility, security and trackability—DocuSign for ServiceNow keeps a business’s back office operations within your IT team’s pocket. From a single dashboard, your IT department can track internal processes on ServiceNow and monitor the full legal audit trail. With a comprehensive record of names, emails, IP addresses and locations associated with legal cases, the integration also makes it easy to identify and correct any errors.

Lead more efficient workflows 

Save thousands of hours in administrative time and minimize human error by automating manual agreement processes and reducing the steps required to complete workflows. For example, take a look at how your legal team and HR department could save time using DocuSign for ServiceNow. As the chief compliance office, legal handles many approval and compliance requests from employees such as requests to join outside boards and policy-exemption requests. Using eSignatures to automate routing and approvals creates a self-service process for employees and reduces paperwork and administrative tasks for HR and legal teams. 

Boost employee productivity 

Make it easy for employees to sign new paperwork recording lifecycle events like moving to a different state or getting a promotion. DocuSign for ServiceNow allows employees to cut out manual tasks by auto-filling template forms and auto-tagging departments. With this easy-to-use ticketing system, document initiations and approvals all occur within the ServiceNow mobile app or web user interface.

Trust in the security of your documents

DocuSign brings multiple authentication methods such as phone, SMS and KBA identity verification to the ServiceNow platform, keeping your digital contracts secure and compliant with security regulations. This is especially useful for businesses operating in industries or countries with extensive security requirements such as two-factor authentication.

In highly-regulated industries, businesses may be subject to data-protection mandates like 21 CFR part 11 in HLS and the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program or FedRAMP for government agreements. DocuSign ensures that digital agreements that flow through ServiceNow contain the extra authentication steps needed to comply with specific industry regulations. eSignature upholds the PCI Data Security Standard, FedRAMP moderate impact level and the Department of Defense’s Impact Level 4 (IL4).

In countries with different law requirements such as Poland, France, India and China, businesses must adhere to extensive identity verification. A company that wants to onboard an employee in France would find that, without a qualified e-signature for forms, ServiceNow’s HR solution would require manual signatures and processes for onboarding employees. This would break the digital experience that most employees expect out of their employers today. DocuSign provides the security measures that help businesses comply with international digital contract laws and creates one global experience for all employees. DocuSign holds international security certifications such as ISO 27001, and is committed to compliance with international privacy standards including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation PRP System.

Work effortlessly with outside vendors

DocuSign extends workflows beyond the ServiceNow environment. Instead of having to invite parties outside of your organization into ServiceNow, DocuSign enables businesses to easily capture consent and obtain e-signatures from vendors and independent contractors that aren’t on the ServiceNow platform.

NDAs are just one of the more common examples of this functionality. Using DocuSign for ServiceNow, legal can simply add an eSignature as a step in their workflow, and DocuSign will automatically send a signature request to the partner without requiring them to enter ServiceNow. Once the partner signs, DocuSign stores the NDA back in the ServiceNow platform.

Integrate flexibly

If an organization uses several enterprise software solutions, DocuSign can be the unifying thread that connects them all under the ServiceNow dashboard. Whether using Microsoft Office, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Dynamics, Workday, SAP, Salesforce or Oracle, DocuSign out-of-the-box integrations give you the ease to effortlessly move among applications. Enterprises in myriad industries are finding that workflow transformation becomes even more powerful when you harmonize all the technology tools in your arsenal.

Make the most of ServiceNow with DocuSign eSignature integration

With 6,900 enterprise clients and growing, ServiceNow is helping organizations reinvent how they collaborate. When you harness this ticketing platform with the consent-enabling abilities of DocuSign, you have a muscular workflow tool that manages your back office and breaks down departmental silos.

And with easy implementation and mobile compatibility, you don’t have to wait to implement this integration. Businesses can garner the benefits of DocuSign for ServiceNow on practically any mobile device in just days. Explore the potential of DocuSign for ServiceNow to make your workplace more efficient and secure—and get more from your ServiceNow investment.

Learn more about how to optimize your ServiceNow workflows for HR Service Delivery.