The previous two quarters of this year have been super active in many fields, including our brands and products promotion, sales, and marketing activities, attending different fares (e.g. Money 20/20), trainings and bootcamps. Even more important are our technological achievements to add greater value for our customers and deliver our promise – simplify integration of digital trust services. This means constant improvement and adoption to market needs and realities.

Looking back to this year we can share that we have improved usability, user experience and brought overall more added value to users of our products.

Content

General

Additional supported methods. SigningServices have added support of additional methods such as:

SMS signing – for cases where Qualified Electronic Signatures aren’t applicable for any reason.

Evrotrust – users from around 60 countries in nearly all continents [see the list here] can get qualified certificate using Evrotrust service via mobile app and use the certificate for identification and e-signing with qualified electronic signature. For users it’s free of charge in certain volume! So, if you’re struggling to digitise your processes, e.g. onboarding new-hires, because they don’t have means to e-sign documents with qualified electronic signature, then keep in mind – there is option to resolve it!

Support of Web eID for eID cards. For eID card authentication and signing, we have added support of the Web-eID project. The Web eID project enables usage of European Union electronic identity (eID) smart cards for secure authentication and digital signing of documents on the web using public-key cryptography.

Supported DB platforms. Responding to the different preferences of our customers, we have added additional database support thus now SigningServices support PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL (MSSQL) and MySQL. Let us know if you require support of other database in case you consider using SigningServices!

New features and service to simplify information and metadata management. Container and Signature service has now improved Call-back feature to enable broader use-cases and integration scenarios where signing or e-sealing action results information is required in other systems. And a new Metadata update service for simplified metadata management of files that are e-signed or e-sealed. It was created from real-life practical projects where we faced the necessity for companies to collect and manage metadata related to e-signed / e-sealed documents. Metadata update service takes care of updating (overwrite or extend) information in related systems e.g. document management, data warehouse, messaging systems etc. mapped attributes, based on e-signing results.

There are additional logging features added, several discovered bugs fixed and dependencies updated.

SignBox

SignBox – the ready-to-use e-signing application to sign documents and collect signatures from others - includes majority of SigningServices offered components to enhance any business system with signature collection process initiation, tracking and automated data handling. Either manually using the Internal portal or directly from your existing information systems used by your users, signature collection processes can be easily initiated and tracked. Typical use-cases include:

signature collection from to-be employees – HR system user has a new feature “Get signature” at the employers profile in their system and SignBox is called to get the signature from the right person, archive properly the signed document and inform the HR expert about the result. In most legislations, Employment contract requires qualified electronic signature. In the contract parties can agree about how they sign future records among them.

Commercial contracts signing among companies. In a document management or stand-alone contracts management system, contract flow always include signing step. Extend that workflow with SignBox to collect all the signatures easily. Qualified, advanced – whatever you need and what compliance requires.

Governance documents, such as board meeting materials minutes and protocols and other materials. Very often, especially during pandemic caused restrictions, board meetings become remote, however they still require qualified electronic signatures.

There are many more use-cases where signature collection simplifies life and makes processes not only more efficient within compliance, but even enable new working modes and great user experience. Learn more about SignBox

Actual SignBox features:

When defining dedicated role for the receiver of the document, along with signer and viewer roles it is now possible to also define approver role where receiver of the document can review the document and approve it without signing. Accordingly, initiator will receive information that the document has been (for example, managerially) approved and now ready for the next actions.

On the opposite – if for receiver there is a reason to decline the document – now there is added option to decline and leave the explaining decline comment.

There are other improvements and features added e.g., option to have document reference from the company’s leading application and no need to upload or drag-and-drop, thus saving time. Or having option to filter document history by different statuses, seeing signing progress for all initiated processes etc.

Read more about SignBox here and the user manual. Here you can see how it works: SignBox - how it works.

Below is an architecture overview of what are the SigningServices components that SignBox is composed of:

Authentication Service and Portal

Authentication Portal has now User Interface configuration options available, allowing each customer to easily adjust the visual design and available methods for users in the portal. How to do it is described here.

Support of Evrotrust – option for users to get Qualified Electronic Signature tool to use for identifying and e-signing online.

Support of Web-eID for multiple countries eID cards support

SMS signing support for situations and use-cases where QES is not applicable or required for any reason. SMS signing complies with PSD2 regula requirements and can be used also for capturing evidence about financial transactions, e.g. payments

Smart-ID advanced level support

Cookie domains, context path improvements

Support of additional data bases MSSQL, MySQL in addition to PostgreSQL

Graphical user interface, website

Description automatically generated

Archive Service

Support of Microsoft Graph for archiving in SharePoint Online.

Support of different authentication providers, such as:

Ticket

JWT mapping

JWT Impersonate

Credentials

Use pipeline principle to manage big volumes of document processing simultaneously / in short time for high-performing use-cases and situations.

Sentry logger support for java code analysis

Fallback retry to ensure continuity and avoid incidents in short-interruption or other connections or systems availability cases

OpenText CS support for external portal alternative view

Fallback service

Blob support for storing documents nearly instantly in highly transactional and availability demanding use-cases (e.g. internet bank transactions, invoicing in billing etc.).

Container and Signature Service

New approach for PDF files signing, DSS for PDF signing

E-seal and Return available as one endpoint

Metadata update service support

Callback feature to enable broader use-cases and integration scenarios where signing or e-sealing action results information is required in other systems

“Document” sign API that simplifies integration and streamlines request flow, skipping the document type understanding before requesting respective signing endpoint

SMS Signing support

Smart-ID advanced accounts support

Encryption of files – using ldap profiles

Decryption of files

Sign documents using custom token storage (p12)

Process and Audit Service

New role – Approver with comments

New action – Decline with comments

New callbacks – sign, decline, approve

Including your company logo as attachment in email notifications

New endpoints for External portal (where users access the document list shared with them)

Statuses and comments handling improvements

New attribute Completed_At

Email templates improvements to add logo and url placeholders from configuration

Internal portal

Initiation view of the Internal portal has improved performance and UI improvements, including:

There can be Bookmarks added as “e-signing process templates” to simplify the user experience for those frequently managing repetitive process flows. E.g. there are processes, done every once in a while, to collect signatures from the same persons. With Bookmarks, user doesn’t have to add those signers data every time. Simply use the bookmarked process. If required, add additional steps and signers or otherwise adjust the bookmarked process.

Anonymous vs Personal code-controlled access. To ensure that only an exact person can access the shared document, SignBox will verify if the person identity number match with the one defined in the signers attributes. Meanwhile, for Anonymous sharing of a document, only users who have access the URL of the document will be able to access it based on the assigner role.

Document reference vs drag and drop. For additional automation and improved user experience, SignBox workflow can be initiated either by users uploading/drag&drop a document in the Internal portal [which then will be processed via Archive Service according to the configuration] or from any other leading application with a reference to a file that needs to be signed with help of SignBox.

Improvements in existing and added new attributes and data fields – Date, Phone number input, Translations, Comments in process view, CompletedAt column

Return URL for returning back to the leading app view from where SignBox process was initiated

Process list has now also:

Signing process progress indicator

Keycloak user name, email info displayed

Filtering option by the new statuses

Graphical user interface, text, application

Description automatically generated

Process details view when a specific process information is opened

 New statuses

 Notify / resend email option

 Document types by user group

 Attributes (OpenText Category)

Graphical user interface, application

Description automatically generated

Authentication to Internal portal via Keycloak

 Microsoft AD integration

 Microsoft Azure AD integration

 3rd party application direct integration (ERP direct process initiation)

 MySQL, MSSQL support in addition to PostgreSQL

External Portal Proxy Service [JWT Proxy/Gateway Service]

CORS support

Added security providers concept (Keycloak, OpenID, Azure AD, OpenText)

OpenText CS support on alternative view support

External portal

React application (no additional node application needed)

Unified visual design

Roles and actions with comments

Language detection

Comments view

Signing endpoints change to “document”

Graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

Description automatically generated

Documents list view with filters and pagination

Graphical user interface, application

Description automatically generated

OpenText Content Server UI

Initiation of document external signing process from classic UI folder view

Graphical user interface, text, application

Description automatically generated

We have so many more plans, ideas and requests from our customers to further simplify integration and use of digital trust services. Stay tuned to our news and updates, Subscribe here!