Adopting e-signature solutions not only modernizes document processes but also contributes to organizational efficiency, security, and compliance in today's digital age. Forrester Consulting conducted a study on behalf of Adobe, called The Total Economic Impact™ of Acrobat Sign. The study examined the financial impact of Acrobat Sign and found that companies who modernize their document workflows with Acrobat Sign can see significant business benefits on their investment. It suggests that organizations may experience benefits of $6.8 million over three years versus costs of $1.3 million, resulting in a net present value (NPV) of $5.5 million and an ROI of 420%. Be it in terms of efficiency and speed, resource savings or positive environmental impact, e-signatures can improve customer experiences and support digitization for organizations.
Acrobat Sign’s built-in features offer a seamless experience for both senders and recipients, minimizing the need for manual interventions and improving completion rates.
Before diving into specific features, let’s check out a few potential scenarios which commonly hinder a recipient and sender experiences.
- Abandoned Agreements:
- has not signed the document, and the agreement remains In Progress without an expiration date
- Recipients are unsure of the email/SMS received for the agreement, suspecting it to be a fraudulent agreement
- Incorrect / Invalid recipient email address, sender not realizing due to various reasons such as not checking the bounce back mail from Acrobat Sign about incorrect/non-existing email address, or not tracking the agreement status, etc.
- Cancelled Agreements:
- In some scenarios, the sender may need to update the associated document. If the first Recipient has signed the document and changes are required, this will require the sender to cancel and resend with updated documents.
- Workflow errors while sending, which cannot be later modified for in-progress agreements, such as recipient role, private messages or additional recipients etc. may require the agreement to be cancelled.
- Recipient authentication failure, scenarios where sender conveyed the wrong password, or maximum attempts to input the correct OTP/Password are exceeded.
- Expired Agreements
- Expiration dates that have not been reasonably set or reviewed for a potential extension may result in expiry.
Acrobat Sign includes a robust feature set designed to help organizations maximize completion rates, minimize manual interventions and follow-ups, and ensure effective user experiences and efficient use of Acrobat Sign Transactions.
- Reminders and Completion deadlines
- Through Reminders in Acrobat Sign, senders can set an automatic reminder frequency to inform the recipient of an incomplete action. This can reduce circumstances where agreements are abandoned or expired due to neglected .
- Completion Deadlines feature helps motivate the recipients to action the document signing process before a specified date. The expiry date is well highlighted in the ‘Review and sign’ and ‘Reminder’ emails as well. It is the best practice to monitor upcoming expiring agreements and possibly extending them.
- Account/Group admins can manage default reminder frequency and completion deadlines at their respective Group levels.
- In case a sender forgot to set reminders, or a completion deadline, they can do so after sending the agreement via the agreement properties on the Manage Page.
Reminders and Competition deadline can be set by the sender while sending the agreement
Options to Edit Reminder Frequence/Completion Deadlines for In-Progress documents
- Modification of in-progress Agreements: Most configuration details of an agreement that was sent for signature can be modified. This ensures that invalid email addresses for recipients can be corrected, alternative recipients can be added, and reminder frequency or expiry timelines can be adjusted to avoid cancelling the agreement. A modifiable agreement is one that meets the following criteria:
・The agreement has not been signed, approved, or delegated to a recipient or approver by the delegator to whom it was assigned.
・The agreement does not include a digital signature or written signature.
・The agreement has not been initiated from a custom workflow.
・The agreement is individually created without a template. Agreements created through Workflows and Send in Bulk do not allow modifications.
- Group Management in Acrobat Sign: Creating Groups and allocating users to their respective groups is a recommended best practice. Group Admins in business and enterprise-level customers can monitor and manage their own group settings, or settings that directly affect the abandoned/expired agreements, such as expiry timelines, automated reminders and decline to sign. By leveraging groups, users can elevate team leaders to group administrators and delegate responsibility to provide additional oversight of usage, which may help in managing transaction consumption more effectively. Furthermore, depending on the requirement, users can be assigned more than one group, through Users in Multiple Group feature. Account/Group reports can be sent on a schedule or exported for further analysis.
- Advanced Sharing is an important feature when agreement oversight or a collaborative team environment is required. Advanced Sharing can be enabled on your account by the Acrobat Sign support team if it is not visible to the account admin. This feature will provide advanced capabilities, such as Modify and Sending access to other’s accounts which can be strictly managed at the account or group level. Additionally, Account Admins have visibility to “Shared Users”. Users will be able to view and manage other’s accounts from the Manage Page. However, the Sending feature is performed by a “Switch To” option under the Profile icon. When you have larger teams that need to share responsibility for agreements that are sent out for signature, establishing a centralized service account to manage them and sharing it out to the team. This can build resiliency across the management of agreements, as individual sharing can become challenging to manage as the team grows. Overall, this improves better team collaboration and oversight of In Progress agreements, reducing the abandonment or expired agreements.
Switching profiles when Advanced Sharing is enabled
- Enabling Private Messages in Acrobat Sign allows recipients to share relevant information with recipients to aid them to take necessary actions on the agreement. Personalize the general message to provide context and clarity to the recipient. When introducing Acrobat Sign, ensure business partners and customers are aware of the new way to sign. Senders can configure these while sending the agreement. This can avoid scenarios where the recipient is unaware of the purpose of the agreement; or needs some instructions to complete the actions. Private messaging feature is available in ad hoc and Customer Workflows.
- Reporting in Acrobat Sign: Using reports to analyze and track how Acrobat Sign is used can help identify trends in the organization’s usage. Through Report filters, admins can check the average time taken for agreement completion, or split across in-progress, completed or cancelled agreements. Further analysis can be performed by administrators by exporting reports to CSV export, accessing the agreement metadata for all the cancelled/expired agreements to determine the cancellation reasons, etc.
- It’s recommended that each user configures Events & Alerts in their Acrobat Sign accounts, enabling emails/alerts for events such as agreement bounced; not viewed in a set duration; upcoming for Expiry, etc., which can result in proper action before the agreements get abandoned or expired. In Advanced Sharing scenarios, a user can receive alerts for accounts shared with them, apart from their notifications.
- Custom Sending Workflows: Mostly, agreements that are sent out for signature follow standard signature policies and they rely on the same document template that is slightly adjusted to the specific agreement. Enabling users and or group administrators to build Custom Workflows unlocks their ability to implement signature policies along with the up-to-date document template and simplify the sending process whilst ensuring the correct signature policies, reminders and expiration dates are configured – a great way to minimize mistakes in Acrobat Sign!
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