With the use of electronic signatures becoming more prevalent in today’s office atmosphere, businesses are quickly recognizing the value and benefits that come along with adopting electronic processes. I spend a considerable amount of my time speaking with these businesses, and discussing the best ways to incorporate eOriginal’s SmartSign electronic signature solution into their workflow. A common question that I am frequently asked is “what is the difference between Electronic and Digital signatures”?

U.S. legislation (ESIGN/UETA) defines an electronic signature as “an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record”. One of the most commonly used Electronic Signatures today is the Text Typed signature; text typed meaning that one has used a keyboard to type their name, with the intent to sign “something”. Although this is the most common, electronic signatures are not limited to this method. SmartSign allows businesses to have documents e-signed using other accepted methods such as voice, mouse, signature pads, iPad/iPhone (with your finger or stylus), smart-phones and the list goes on. What is important to note; an electronic signature can be applied almost by any means, but it is just the first step in a fully secure and compliant electronic signature process.

Digital signatures require the use of a digital certificate, essentially a type of key or code that utilizes cryptographic algorithms to assure the integrity and authenticity of electronic media, and the information within. Put simply, the application uses an algorithm to generate a unique code by processing the source file. That unique code, think of it as a document’s fingerprint, is then encrypted using the private key stored in the digital certificate. The result of all this processing is a secure document that is tamper evident. If any value in the source document is corrupted or maliciously altered, it can be easily detected by verifying the original signature.

Secure solutions like eOriginal’s SmartSign utilize a combination of electronic and digital signatures. After the electronic signature has been captured and applied to the document, SmartSign then binds the electronic signature and the document content with a second digital signature. This allows SmartSign to lock down the document, adding further assurance that the information in the document has not changed since the electronic signature was applied. This process allows businesses to take advantage of technology, removing paper from the workflow, saving time, money, and helping to increase revenue, all while maintaining the legal integrity, admissibly and enforceability of your important documents.

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Clients that use the SmartSign Web application to create transaction are always looking for a way to cut down the number to steps it takes their employees to create the document(s) for e-signing.

Transaction Types are a great tool in cutting down the time to create a transaction and ensure the right document(s) and signature action are used for each. Transaction Types allow the user to pre-define document packages.  Then by choosing the Transaction Type in the SmartSign Web application, the user can create the entire document package in one single step.

The signature action on these documents can vary from needs a signature, must be reviewed, user must attach a document or user must print for wet-ink signature.

How to setup Transaction Types:

• Command Center – Administration – Settings
  • Document Types – create the Document Type and update all necessary field(s)
    • Note – if a signature template is needed for the Document Type first create the Document Type then in the SmartSign application create the signature template and save it against the Document Type previously created. This also updates the Command Center Document Type with the signature template.
  • Transaction Types – create the Transaction Type and drag desired Document Types under the ‘Include These Documents’ heading.



To create a transaction using a Transaction Type use the ‘Create a new transaction of type’ dropdown to choose that Transaction Type value.

For more information on eOriginal Command Center and SmartSign Web application please contact us anytime.

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Most people think a digital signature is the application of an electronic representation of a signature to a document. In fact, a digital signature involves a formal process of utilizing a digital certificate issued by a Certificate Authority (e.g. VeriSign, GoDaddy, Comodo) that uses public key cryptography to create a unique representation of a message or document.  SmartSign incorporates both electronic signatures and digital signatures to simplify the capture across multiple channels such as web, mobile, point of sale, and others.

While capturing and applying a digital signature to a document is an important aspect of approvals, authorizations, and originations, it is just the start of your electronic document’s life cycle.  The entire business workflow for the signature process, including prepping your documents for signature, sending them out to your signer(s), and capturing the required signatures and data is the crux of eOriginal SmartSign®. SmartSign ensures your organization can easily and rapidly conform to the UETA and ESIGN legislation to make all of your electronic signing processes legal and secure.

Using SmartSign your documents are encrypted and tamper sealed within the trusted repository to maintain, legal admissibility and enforceability throughout the documents lifecycle.

Signing Using Adobe® Signature Format

Documents signed with SmartSign – whether using the web interface or submitted via our web services – are guaranteed to conform to the signature format supported by Adobe Acrobat®. Signatures are inserted into the exact location within the PDF document and bound to the content using a digital signature. The digital signature is generated using a certificate unique to your organization. The documents are automatically encrypted and deposited in the trusted repository.

Signing Using Multimedia Signatures

eOriginal SmartSign® extends the Adobe Signature Format to include the use of multimedia signatures.  Now you can extend the signature capture experience beyond the web, to capture a users’ approval or consent using a fingerprint device or voice recording. SmartSign securely binds the multimedia signature to the content of any agreement, and can automatically detect any change to the source document or multimedia file.

Multimedia signature support is actually an extension of our current visual signature representations and can be used together with any other signature appearance supported by SmartSign.  The multimedia signature information is also securely stored and encrypted within the integrated trusted repository.

Retrieving And Verifying Signature Information

eOriginal allows your authorized users to obtain detailed information about each signature applied to a document without retrieving the document itself, from any location at any time. Signature information can be retrieved through the published web services, using the eCore Command Center web application, or attached to an automated email notification.

The available digital signature information includes: the name of the exact signature location, the time the signature was applied, the signer’s reason for signing, location/IP address of the signer, the Certificate Authority that issued the signature’s certificate, along with any raw multimedia data stored with the signature.

Business System Digitial Signature Checking

All documents signed using the SmartSign signature process are passed through a rigorous verification process prior to deposit in the trusted repository. When a document is presented to the repository it must pass through our multi-step signature verification and validation process. This process includes the following steps:

• There must be at least one digital signature present within the document.
• The digital signature is verified against the content of the document, to ensure none of the content has been altered since the signature was applied.
• If there are multiple signatures applied to the document, the most recent signature much match the content of the previously stored document revision.
• The digital certificate used to sign the document must be within the certificate’s validity period at the time of acceptance within the trusted repository.
• The certificate will be verified as valid against the issuing Certificate Authority’s revocation list.
• Only after passing this verification process, will the document be tamper sealed and deposited into the trusted repository.

The steps and processes outlined above make eOriginal’s end-to-end electronic signature solution the most robust and secure solution on the market, customizable to fit almost any business need and workflow process. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or leave a few comments.

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Staying in tune with the latest advances in technology, proactively seeking feedback from our clients, and staying ahead of the curve on industry developments are just a few of the ways in which we develop and enhance our application’s feature set. So in light of some great customer input, our research, and with many thanks to our awesome development team, we are pleased to announce the latest release of eCore and SmartSign 6 electronic signature solution.

I wish I could outline each and every new feature but that would make for a pretty long post and I know most of you are busy with work and getting everything ready this holiday season, so I’ll pick out a few of my favorites to highlight. Plus if you want to learn more you can always reach out and fill out one of our contacts forms or email me personally here.  So lets begin:

• Extended support for multimedia signatures beyond simple signature pad formats, you may now capture and bind biometric (retina scan, fingerprint) or voice signatures to your PDF documents.

• Data merge for document preparation. You can now add text data to PDF forms (think document prep). For example, after you collect data through an HTML form or other internal system, you can utilize the SmartSign Link^TM web services to merge the data into your forms.

• Send notifications to the sender/creator of a transaction. SmartSign already had distribution list notifications, but now all senders can be notified when a signer completes the signature and when the signature process is completed.

• Enabled signers to receive “final executed copy” distribution email when all signatures have been completed.

• Query for signature status through the SmartSign Link^TM web services. Instantly look up where your documents are in the esigning process.

• Define routing order of email invitations to multiple signers/reviewers. This feature allows you to define the order in which users are notified to come into the signing room to complete the signature process.

• Improved usability of signature Template Designer, to simplify drag and drop addition of form fields into PDF documents.

• Apply appearance properties to text fields in the Template Designer (i.e. font, color, size)

• Data Collection – enables you to collect data from users within SmartSign and automatically apply the data to documents in the transaction. This allows you to collect data once from the user(s) and have it applied across the document set within the transaction.

• Data Validation – SmartSign Web will ensure accurate data is inserted into the text fields within the document during data collection or signature capture.

Now that you see how busy we’ve been working to build the most complete end to end signing solution you can see why we are so excited. And this is only Part 1 of our feature update series. Look for part 2 early next week where we’ll take a look at a few highlighted updates we made to eCore.

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