Access to up-to-date information is rapidly becoming the standard for users armed with the latest Smart Phone technology. Most of us have an “app” for getting the latest news, weather, sports scores, whatever we want to know when we want to know it. Business users are no different, in fact for those of us that travel a lot or have the benefit of working remotely, access to information we need to get the job done is critical. And a big part of getting the job done often involves getting signatures on documents from your customers, partners, or employees. Whether it is a new contract, a mutual non-disclosure, a real estate agreement or a beneficiary form – having the ability to track where it is in the process is crucial to your business.

With the latest version of eOriginal Command Center we enable you to satisfy your need for “information when I want it, where I want it.” Command Center automatically detects when you are on a mobile device and adapts the user experience to the capabilities of the device. Once you have logged into the application, you can quickly search for outstanding transactions by date sent, status or both. The results are displayed back in seconds and allow you to drill down to see all the details about the transaction. Is one of your deals “stuck” waiting on someone to sign a contract? Simply send out an email reminder to the customer, or all participants, right from your phone. So now, wherever you are you can keep up with your business and keep information moving as fast as you are!

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For those customers who have taken the time to tryout our our new version on Preview On Demand, you have probably already experienced the new Workspace. Yes, we did it. We merged the SmartSign Web and Command Center user interfaces into a single application. The “new” Command Center user interface has undergone a significant update, making it much easier for you to locate, manage, and interact with your transactions and documents.

But our engineers were not just satisfied with a simple user interface refresh, they spent a lot of time “under the hood” optimizing the way you can search for documents and transaction, implementing (geek alert) Ajax to enable you to quickly page through large result sets, reorder lists, change the order of table rows in results, and introduced the new Snapshot view. The Snapshot “shows itself” anytime you click on a transaction, giving you a fast-yet-comprehensive view of the transaction. From the Snapshot, you can…

• View all the documents associated with the transaction,
• View the document histories on each document,
• Retrieve a copy of a document,
• Retrieve a Document Activity History Report (PDF),
• and much more…try it out

But one of my favorite features of the new Workspace is Collections. There are two types of collections; transaction and document. To create a collection, simply click Add from the Collections list on the left side of the page. Type in the name of your collection and a new collection is added to your list. Now all you have to do is search for transactions (or documents) using the search feature at the top of the page. Click on the transactions you want and drag them over to the collection. The selected transactions are automatically added as members of the collection.

Once you have created a collection, you can perform all kinds of batch actions on its members. Maybe you need to delete obsolete or incomplete transactions, or transfer control to a partner, or destroy signed Electronic Originals that have passed their retention period. All these actions (and more) are available to you by clicking on the little arrow to the right of the collection name. Of course, all available actions are limited to your permissions in the trusted repository.

So go ahead, log into Preview and create a collection.

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I was recently talking with one of our business development executives and he was telling me about a potential client who wanted us to break down the document management and storage costs within our Trusted Repository after a document was eSigned with SmartSign. Well, we went over the general costs and variables including transaction volumes/number documents, their relative size, and their value.

The above three “variables” are not the only things to take into consideration, but for this particular opportunity, it is what is most important to them.

• The transaction volume accounts for how many transactions a company will be completing over a given time period. Will the company be signing 100 docs per day/month/year, you get the point…
• Relative size really means how big your documents are or packages 35KB, a few mgs, or larger.
• The value of the documents translates into, will the documents you are having eSigned have any negotiable/monetary value.

This last point is extremely important – improper storage and management can and will compromise their value.

OK, back to our business development guy and his opportunity. This particular opportunity had some fairly complex and large documents, somewhere around 250kbs, with a high transaction volume, and the docs would be leveraged as collateral. After taking into account all variables, we figured the approximate costs would roughly equal $0.0038 per transaction per month (under ½ cent).

If you are interested in learning more, I would first like you to take a look at what it costs you to physically store and manage your documents. You’ll need to take into account storage space, costs per file cabinet, even administrative costs, among other things. We went over what it costs to have documents signed in a previous post and it may help.

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Recently SDM Magazine published a great article “ESIGN and Go (& Grow Your Business)” on what electronic signatures can do for your security alarm business. The article features some great insight from industry leaders including NorthStar Alarm Services, a client of eOriginal’s.

Electronic signatures can really make an impact on productivity. In the article Nick Nelson, an inside sales agent and customer retention specialist at NorthStar, notes “I personally can do five to ten of these every day rather than handwriting out and mailing each one”.  He says “It cuts my time at least in half and allows me to work with other customers or take phone calls. When it comes back, it notifies me it’s been done. They’re then forwarded on to billing, tech support, service technicians, etc.”

Although the front-end productivity benefits are apparent and relevant, the back-end benefits of eOriginal’s system frequently prove to be just as important and, in many cases, even more so.  eOriginal’s SmartSign not only protects the value of your eSigned agreements, it improves your control of contracts, allows your company to utilize these electronic assets as collateral in an automated, secure environment, increasing your lenders’ comfortability.  SmartSign also improves back-office processes by removing the need to manually scan, file and search for paper documents.

To view the entire article, please follow the link above.  SDM Magazine is filled with great resources and will benefit any security alarm professional.

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Electronic signatures have many benefits in assisting companies improve their contract signing and workflow processes. From an ROI perspective, one of the most important features is speeding time to money – that is speeding the process by which a customer may securely receive, review, sign and return a set of documents in order to complete a transaction.

It’s been proven that removing paper from business processes has saved a lot of money over traditional costs associated with physically printing, shipping, filing, scanning and manual data entry.  This not only has saved companies money and resources on administrative costs, but has also shortened a company’s Quote to Cash Process, and allowed the electronic signature solution to pay for itself quickly.

But what happens when your documents aren’t signed right away? Is SmartSign still of value?  Is it possible for SmartSign to also be used to improve your internal business processes, help ensure better customer service, and provide your company with tools to manage and monitor change?  You may be surprised to find that the answer is yes.

Better management starts with better insight.  Executives and management are provided visibility over the entire signing process, so you’ll always know where a document is in the workflow process.  As an example, let’s assume that an agreement needs to be signed and or reviewed by 5 people (Sales Rep., Mr. Signer, Mrs. Signer, Department Manager and Service Manager).  If this was a paper process, it would be very difficult for you to accurately track and monitor who had or had not signed the agreement, and on whose desk it currently sits.  In a paper world, when asked for a status update, the sales executive would typically answer “I’m trying to track it down; I’ve left multiple voice mail messages with everyone associated with this transaction and have not heard back from anyone yet.”

Sound familiar?  What a frustrating waste of time and energy!  With eOriginal SmartSign Web®, the system provides complete visibility to the entire signing experience.  Reps know the status of agreements, and management has an accurate view over all transactions that are in-process or completed.

Automated notifications can be set up in SmartSign to proactively alert pertinent parties of significant events in the transaction process.  Examples of notification events can include your customer logging into the SmartSign signing room, signer number 3 of 5 completing the signing process or that a transaction is fully reviewed and signed by all parties.  In addition, how much better would your team’s closing rate improve if they knew when a prospect enters a signing room by a real time notification?  With this information, a rep may choose to call and assure a completed transaction.

Expirations and reminders may also be set to assure deadlines will be met.  From a Sales perspective, the rep now does not need to spend time worrying about remembering to remind someone of a deadline. Reminders would also let customers know how long they have to take advantage of an agreement or of favorable terms.

Insightful reports round out the oversight and provide your sales team, managers, and executives with real-time reporting of business metrics (closed deal, contracts out for signing, etc.)  Reports can be used to help build more complete forecasting and revenue analysis.  They can also be used to measure activity of sales reps, quantities sent, turn-around times for different types of transactions, success or drop-off rates of prospects, and much more.

SmartSign’s key focus is to help businesses grow, and shortening the “time to money”, is just one major benefit of our complete end-to-end solution.  Helping you improve your business is another.  Remember, if it can’t be measured, it can’t be improved.   SmartSign makes monitoring and measuring easy.

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As more businesses leverage online tools and cloud computing capabilities as a means to improve operational efficiencies and reduce or eliminate dependency on paper, there is one overlooked piece of the puzzle…Electronic Signatures. More often than not contracts or agreements are created in a digital format, however once terms or conditions are agreed upon, many businesses rely on resource intensive paper-based processes. The process of printing, shipping, faxing and filing, is resource intensive, expensive and slow.

If most of your operations are already taken online, why not close the loop with electronic signatures. By utilizing an end-to-end electronic signature solution like eOriginal’s SmartSign Web, businesses are able to compliment existing applications to create a completely streamlined process from origination → to signing → to storing and managing documents throughout their entire lifecycle. Electronic signatures really are designed to simplify business operations. Documents are sent out for signature via email, the ID of signers can be validated through multiple layers of verification (if necessary), and documents can be signed through any number of ways including text signatures, signature pads, and using mobile devices (Smart phones, iPads, tablets, etc) for access anytime anywhere.

A few key benefits include:

• Reduce sales-cycles closing more deals faster having documents signed in minutes, not days or weeks.
• Track user activity throughout the entire document management process with automated alerts. Alerts can notify key members of your team for newly closed deals, contract extensions, and who has and hasn’t signed.
• Eliminate errors and missing or incomplete documents. The signing process can not be completed without all proper information being provided.
• Reduce costs associated with printing, faxing, and filing paper documents.
• Go Green — eliminating paper based systems minimizes your organizations impact on the environment.

Electronic signatures may not fit the bill for every organization or for every process and each provider offers a few different options and solutions, so it is important to take a look at what your business is doing. But, if you are looking to close the gap and eliminate the “paper-chase”, electronic signatures are probably your best bet to grow and go paperless.

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I have spent a considerable amount of time working with and speaking to Security Alarm companies, Industry Experts and Funders on the benefits, compliance and best practices of electronic signatures. For what is historically a paper-based industry when it comes to handling business processes, contracts, and internal documents, eOriginal has had the opportunity and pleasure to work with a few innovative Security Alarm Companies to help them to streamline their business processes using SmartSign, our electronic signature and life-cycle management solution.

Today, many other Security Alarm Companies have taken the initiative to begin looking into the benefits of electronic signatures. While more and more companies are looking into eSignatures, there seems to be a few common questions and concerns. While most perceived barriers can be easily overcome, security alarm companies and funders should take into consideration a few key points when evaluating and implementing electronic signatures such as:

• How to present FTC regulated Consumer Disclosures.
• Will your Funders (Banks) approve of the process?
• Will going electronic affect your RMR?
• Will other companies be able to purchase or acquire my contracts?

These are just a few areas of interest that need to be addressed. Now the benefits are apparent; other than saving time and money, your organization will have a few important advantages over your competition.

• Have contracts, lease agreements, installation forms, signed and processed in minutes
• Easily facilitate contract renewals, especially in states outlawing the evergreen clause
• Reduce labor and material costs associated with printing, faxing, scanning, shipping, and archiving

In just a few short days eOriginal, along with industry leaders, will be addressing the most common questions and concerns in a 60-minute educational webinar. What we hope to accomplish is to simply bring a better understanding to how electronic processes can replace aging paper-based systems. If you are interested, please don’t hesitate to register or contact us to learn more about the webinar or our experience with security alarm companies.

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As business are becoming more mobile and fluid, employees are relying on smart-phones to do more than coordinate their emails. Smart-phones are a life-line or  hub of information for most businesses today so it only makes sense for the use of SMS (Short Message Service) text message notifications as a means of signer authentication. With eOriginal SmartSign, SMS/text ID verification can be applied in two separate methods for an added level of security:

• sending the signer’s Security Code for login
• a secondary authentication generated by a one-time system generated PIN which provides an additional layer authentication for signers

SmartSign’s flexibility allows businesses to leverage smart-phones to take your business to the next level of efficiency by not only authenticating users but also following through and allowing users to sign agreement using those ever important iPhones, blackberrys, Android, etc.  Please take the time to view the following video which walks the SmartSign administrator through the setup process and how the signer interacts during the SMS text process.

SMS Authentication Process

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Remote signing of transactions can be a challenge, especially when you don’t have an established relationship with the third party.  How do you know they really are who they say they are?  SmartSign offers a variety of authentication options to provide a higher level of confidence that the intended recipient is the actual signer.

• A Security code may be enabled to act as a password on the transaction.  Define a security code for each signer on the transaction.  Communicate the security code to the signer either verbally, via Email, or SMS (a.k.a. text message) notification.  The signer must correctly enter this security code to access the transaction.

• An Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)/Patriot Act compliance check may be enabled for any individual signer, verifying the signer has not been flagged as a risk by OFAC.

• An identity verification exam may be enabled for any individual signer.  The signer will be prompted to answer several “out-of-wallet” questions about himself.  The signer must correctly answer a pre-defined number of questions before gaining access to the transaction.  A report of the questions presented, information provided, and score may be retained.

• A one-time-use PIN may be enabled for any individual signer.  Provide a cell phone number for the signer (or allow the signer to provide it themselves) and the signer will receive text message with a one-time-use PIN.  The signer must correctly enter the PIN to gain access to the transaction.  Use of the one-time-use PIN authentication facilitates two-factor authentication, combining something the signer knows (the link to the signing room) with something they have (the physical device which is assigned to the cell phone number receiving the SMS notification).

The authentication method used to access the transaction is recorded in the sealed audit trail for the transaction documents along with supporting details (e.g. cell phone number, PIN).  These authentication options may be used independently or together, allowing you to define the optimal authentication solution for your organization.

For further information on SmartSign authentication options, please contact eOriginal Customer Support.

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eOriginal clients have the ability to link their Google account to their eOriginal login in order to import Google documents during the transaction creation in SmartSign Web.

Tying these accounts allows you to add a Google document(s) when the document is not part of an existing document type or you don’t have excess to your network. For those times when you are away from the office and you need a document electronically signed,  this is the solution you have been waiting for.

Here are the steps to link your Google account to your eOriginal login (SmartSign Web)

• Login – Administration – User Settings – Google Account – use link to access and grant access
• Google – grant access and create document library

That’s it!  Now you have the choice of accessing those Google documents during the document creation process.

Please take the time to view this short video on granting access to your Google account and how to upload those documents in SmartSign Web.

Google_Docs

The process is seamless and the advantages are endless.

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