This week (6th October 2014), Nintex released the Nintex Connector for DocuSign.  What does this mean for the Nintex Workflow user?

Put quite simply, you can now build workflows where you can request signatures in documents from users, via DocuSign.

In this post, I'll be highlighting some of the actions that are available and how to use them within a workflow.  The scenario that first comes to mind, when requiring a signature, is a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).

Firstly, from the DocuSign end.  Although you could just have a simple document you want people to sign, one of the cool features of DocuSign, is that you can have a Document Template that has fields in it.

So now that we have the document template, how do we send that to a user to sign, so that it contains the fields?

Workflow

We need to populate a template with the fields and values you want to add to that document. To do this, we use the DocuSign Populate template action.

There are a few important fields that are needed for this action:

The Authorizing User is the account that can request this from DocuSign.  What would usually happen when you do this, is that that authorizing user will get an email, requesting whether they allow Nintex to work on their behalf for this.  Not, if you don't republish the workflow and run other instances of this workflow, the Authorizing user will not get more requests.  But if you republish the workflow, they will get one.  What this means, is that each time you republish a workflow, this request will get sent out.

You also specify the template name and then who you want to assign this to.  Notice near the bottom of that image, there are settings called Field name and Field values.  These are collection variables that contain the names of the fields you want to set in the document and also the values you want to them to.  We are also storing the Envelope ID, because we'll need it later.

We will see later, than in our workflow, we are actually building up these collection variables.

Now that the template has been populated with data and the request has been sent, what happens next?

The next step, is that we need to build a loop into our workflow.  The reason for this, is that the loop needs to continue doing what is inside it, while the document request has not be responded to.  Inside, we use another new action named "DocuSign retrieve envelope status".  Also, inside the Loop, we can do a check to see if we have a response and if not, go into a delay.

The settings for the DocuSign retrieve envelope status are quite straightforward. We need the Authorizing user, the envelope ID and also a variable to store the status.

The next main action, is the DocuSign download document.  Legally signed documents live in DocuSign.  This "download document" action, allows your to download a copy and store in a library or as an attachment.

You can see, how using the new Nintex Connector for DocuSign actions, really allows you to build in some document signing functionality, into your business processes.

I've attached the workflow for your to play around with.  You will need to tweak it, as it uses a Nintex Workflow constant.  So that should be quite easy for you to figure it out.

In Progress Workflow

When the workflow runs, it will communicate with DocuSign. That means, that while it is running, if you look at the workflow history of this workflow instance, you'll see it looks like something like this:

This gives you a great idea of exactly where the workflow is currently at in it's process.

Signing the Document

When the workflow runs, the user will get an email and they'll follow a link that will take them to the DocuSign site.  There, they'll be provided with a page like this :

The Review Document button will bring up the document where they can review it and eventually sign it.

The "Sign Here" little yellow button with the red arrow is a dead giveaway as to where you need to sign this document.  Click on this button and you'll be able to enter an electronic signature onto the form.

Once signed, you click on the "Confirm Signing" button that will be on the left of the document.

Since the document is signed, the workflow will pick that up and will complete the rest of the business logic in the workflow.

The final action this workflow performed, is to download the signed document and attach it to the current item the workflow is running on :

Remember that the document that is attached to the item is a copy of the original.  The original signed document (legal document) lives at DocuSign.

Conclusion

I'm sure you're thinking of any number of ways to use these actions.  Well, it all depends on your business processes.  But it's definitely a powerful new feature of Nintex Workflow.

More Information : Using the DocuSign connector for Approval Workflow and requiring signatures

if you have any questions, please feel free to add them to the comments section below.