I am creating a web app that has the following requirements:
There will be multiple administrators working for a tenant. The administrators will upload a document that needs to be signed and select the recipients and click send. The recipients will receive a link by email, click it, log in, view the document and sign it.
I was looking into third party developer API's to help with this such as DocuSign but a few questions/concerns came to mind.
I am going to assume that uploading and setting the areas to sign would need to be done through the docusign site. So would each administrator have to login in to the single tenant docusign account and upload their documents? Seems like it wouldn't be possible.
As an alternative I was thinking about staying away from the third parties entirely and just using an HTML signature pad under the document. However, with this technique the actual document would never be signed so for printing purposes it would look bad.
If anyone can shine some light on this topic that would be great. I am trying to figure out what my options are.
(I work for DocuSign.) Using DocuSign or another 3rd party product to handle the signing ceremony and related legal issues is usually a business decision that you'll want to discuss with your colleagues.
Legal issues to be considered include the signer's authorization to use eSignatures for the transaction, authentication, non-reputability, and more.
If you choose to use DocuSign, we have many code examples to help you implement your application.
It is common to "embed" the signing ceremony within your application. Your application can programmatically create the document, or use pre-canned documents.
Signature fields can be placed via anchor text as suggested by @EmmanuelRosa or specific coordinates on the page can be used.
If you have questions about how DocuSign works, contact DocuSign for more information. You can also sign up for a free trial account. When you're ready to develop your software, sign up for a developer sandbox account. More info is available on the DevCenter.
If you're writing an ISV application that you'll sell to multiple customers (tenants) then each customer will usually have their own DocuSign Account. In some cases you'll find that customers will have a pre-existing DocuSign account that they will want to use with your application.
In other cases, your customer's first need for a DocuSign account will be to use it with your application.
If you want, and depending on your volumes, you can resell DocuSign accounts to your customers who need them.
Each DocuSign account can handle any number of users. Users are usually people who send transactions for signing.
Signers do not need a DocuSign account and are not charged for.
You will not want your customers to share a DocuSign account since an account administrator can see all of the account's transactions.
Generally speaking, DocuSign does not charge per account. Instead it charges either per sender or per sent transaction (envelope).
Also note one ISV application written by you will have one Integration Key (same as a client_id) and that application can be used by any number of users, in any number of different DocuSign accounts.