Topic
This is part one of a two part series of articles where you will learn how to integrate a workflow with a Nintex eSign template, which is a document for capturing electronic signatures. In this article we will begin by quickly reviewing an eSign template document for context, then see how to wire it up through SmartObjects to expose the signature capturing process to a workflow. Make note, everything shown in this series of articles can be configured in both Nintex Automation On-Premises and Nintex K2 Cloud.
Before we go too far, I am assuming you have some product understanding related to setting up a template to capture electronic signatures with eSign. If you have questions on that topic, you can refer to the article, Getting Started with Nintex AssureSign, for more information on how that works. If you're good to go, then let's begin with a simple business scenario to paint the picture.
We're updating some of our product names. Because of that you may see products referred to with both names in this article as we move through that process. AssureSign will be referred to as eSign and K2 Five will be Automation On-Prem.
Scenario
So, your business analysts have been busy analyzing processes in your organization to locate areas where work being done could be optimized. Through this enlightening and transformative effort they have discovered a process that is still paper based. Wondering which one it is? Let's check it out!
Signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement
It turns out that having people sign a non-disclosure agreement happens to be a fairly big step in bringing in potential new employees, customers, partners, consultants, or anyone else that needs to engage with your business in some fashion. Protecting your intellectual property is extremely important, well that is unless you're just a very openly sharing person. I'll assume you aren't that open with your business ideas and secrets, which is why you have that process in place. However, the current process is still paper based, requires sending a physical document out through snail mail, waiting for it to be signed, then sent back through the mail or by fax...yeah, faxing is still a thing.
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The issue at hand
The process owners are hesitant to change because it's the way it's always been done, and besides, they really like how their file cabinets over in the corner tie the room together. The biggest issue is, all this wait time holds up other processes that rely on having that document signed. This in turn has lead to some individuals taking a shortcut by sending out the document and immediately starting to work with remote engagements under the assumption that the document will be signed and sent back in good faith. As it turns out, that's not so good actually. Want to take this process electronic? Let's go get a copy of that document.
Time to go digital with eSign
I commend you your courage to gently wrestle a copy of the non-disclosure agreement document from the process owners. Because of that courage, you have been able to create a digital version of your non-disclosure agreement template in eSign and tag it with JotBlocks in all the areas where you want to capture signatures, initials, dates, and other information from your document signers. These JotBlocks are important as they can be exposed as inputs to Automation On-Prem and K2 Cloud applications through SmartObjects. Let's look at that next.
Setup a SmartForms application
As luck would have it, you were also able to quickly build a SmartForms based application that digitally captures the information needed for quick, one-off, non-disclosure agreement requests. You have a form that allows a submitter to enter information for multiple parties that need to sign the agreement. The nice thing about capturing this information in a SmartForm is that it can be sent to various integrated applications as well as to eSign for display on a signature template form when presented to the signers.
Integrate your workflow with eSign
Now you're probably thinking, "All that is good, but how do I integrate this application with my eSign template to streamline my signature gathering process?" The answer to that involves using eSign SmartObjects. To show you how that works, the following video will explain how to create the Service Instance and then generate the SmartObjects you need to connect to that template for electronic signing. Let's dig in!
Build the workflow
Great news, you are all set with your eSign SmartObject creation! Now there's just one more thing to do. That is, set up your workflow to call the Submit method of your eSign template SmartObject. When you get that rolling you'll be quickly pulling in signed non-disclosure agreements from everyone! Think about all that business risk you had before...it's no longer a problem! The following video explains how to get this going. Check it out when you're ready.
What's Next?
Being able to take documents like non-disclosure agreements to the digital realm is extremely valuable. As you saw in the two videos demonstrating how to integrate Automation On-Prem and K2 Cloud with eSign, you can get the process up and running pretty quickly. In part two of this article series, coming soon, I'll show you how to get the signed non-disclosure agreement back from eSign by accessing the eSign API.
