Top E-Signature Features to Increase Productivity

In the last 18 months, there’s been an increase in the number of organizations adopting e-signature as a way to get agreements done, from sales contracts and offer letters to invoices and onboarding forms and anything in between. Not only did electronic signatures simplify and speed up the process for these organizations, they addressed a pressing need of the pandemic: the ability to sign documents remotely. 

According to the DocuSign State of Electronic Signature 2021 study, the ability to work from anywhere was one of the top 3 benefits of e-signature. Organizations sending documents for e-signature also said that e-signature is 45% faster than manual signatures. Similarly, 54% of the respondents in The State of Systems of Agreement research from Forrester Consulting experienced faster deal cycles as a result of implementing digital agreement processes. 

With DocuSign eSignature, you can eliminate manual tasks, accelerate agreements and easily connect with the tools and systems that you already use. The solution comes with several built-in features that are specifically designed to help you be more efficient, do business faster and, in turn, save time and money. 

This blog dives into some of the features and what you can do, along with associated use cases and where you can find out more, including how to get started with each feature. 

Eliminate manual tasks

Businesses run on agreements, and they’re pervasive across the business. Yet, many of these agreement processes are manual. At a time when everyone is under pressure to work smarter, we could always use more time in the day. And what better way to save time than to replace manual tasks with configurable and automated workflows? 

DocuSign allows you to increase operational efficiency and reduce the time it takes to prepare, send and sign documents. In fact, our customers regularly see immediate productivity gains, like FineMark Bank who decreased the time it takes to prepare documents by 90%. 

There are a host of features geared towards eliminating manual tasks, but two in particular are worth exploring in more depth: templates and signing order. 

Templates

With templates, you can create a streamlined, repeatable process using a standardized document to distribute agreements to multiple people vs. recreating the same document for every signature. By automating this task, DocuSign customers save time and get rid of unnecessary effort. Santander is a great example. They reduced the number of forms used across products by 97%, while Tipalti decreased the number of steps to create a form by 70%.

Examples: 

• Lease agreements
• Nondisclosure agreements
• Sales contracts

Signing order

In the latest DocuSign State of Electronic Signature 2021 research, capturing signatures in a timely manner was cited as the top challenge in completing agreements. With DocuSign, if you have multiple recipients, you can control the order in which they receive and sign your documents. Automatically setting the signing order eliminates the need to manually send the form out to each person one at a time. 

Examples: 

• Legal approvals
• Statement of work 

Sign agreements faster

Minimizing the number of manual tasks also means your agreements get signed quicker. Not only does this save time and money, but it also brings revenue into your organization faster. Eighty percent of DocuSign agreements are completed in less than a day, while 44% of them are done in less than 15 minutes. 

A faster signing process also means happier customers, and DocuSign has several features focused on making signing easy, including automatic reminders and our mobile app. 

Reminders

Set automatic reminders to notify signers that the envelope is ready for them to complete, reducing unnecessary effort spent on back and forth communication, speeding up the entire process. 

Examples: 

• Invoices
• New company policies 

Mobile app

The DocuSign eSignature mobile app is a simple way to send, sign and return documents electronically using virtually any device—and without being tied to the office. You can also receive real-time push notifications when a document is completed or when it’s waiting for signature, so you can ensure it’s signed on time. 

To see all you can do with the mobile app (and it’s a lot!), check out the video below. 

Examples: 

• Healthcare patient onboarding forms
• Rental applications 
• Sales agreements 

Easily integrate DocuSign into existing tools

With 350+ integrations and leading APIs, it’s easy to use DocuSign without ever leaving your favorite CRM and business productivity solutions. Three that you should check out first are Microsoft Office 365, Google Add-On and cloud storage.

Microsoft 

Companies of every size, industry and location can quickly and securely complete business transactions using DocuSign eSignature for Microsoft to prepare and send documents using applications like Microsoft Word, Microsoft SharePoint or Microsoft Outlook. 

You can also seamlessly integrate DocuSign with Microsoft Teams for additional productivity. 

Examples: 

• Onboarding documents
• Sales contracts 

Google Add-on

With the DocuSign for Google Add-on, there’s no need to go back and forth between your Google account and DocuSign. Simply sign directly from your inbox within Google Docs and then import the files into Google Drive. Not only does this save unnecessary effort, but all your work remains in one central place. 

Watch this short video to see how easy it is. 

Examples: 

• Legal agreements
• Sales order transactions
• Subcontractor agreements 

Cloud storage

Whether you use Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive for your cloud storage, you can select any stored file and send it through DocuSign eSignature for signing. By enabling cloud storage, you can automatically save your agreement history in the cloud, reducing manual uploading and enhancing searchability. 

Examples: 

• Employment contracts
• Nondisclosure agreements 

Learn more

The “do more” features highlighted in this post are just the tip of what’s available to help you up your productivity. 

Whether it’s test-driving templates, downloading the mobile app or connecting Microsoft Teams to your DocuSign plan, login today to try them out, or upgrade your account to add any of these features to your plan.