Docusign API: changing the signer name

Question

We are currently implementing Docusign within an application. We send contracts to our customer, and set the Signer to our contact person. We want the customer to be able to sign using a different name as we originally supplied in the signer, if some other person within the company does the actual signing.

So we want the signer to change the signer name and initials in the 'Adopt your signature' dialog if needed, but these fields are greyed out and disabled for editing. According to the docs this should be possible: https://support.docusign.com/en/guides/signer-guide-signing-adopt-new

Example: We have a contact named Alice with email address info@example.com. We send the Signing request, and colleague Bob will read the request from the info@ mailbox, and sign it. I want Bob to be able to enter his name in the 'Adopt your signature' dialog. I have no knowledge of the existence of Bob within the company.

What I've tried sofar:

• In the Docusign admin settings (Settings -> Signing Settings -> Signature Adoption Configuration), the 'Lock recipient name' checkbox is disabled, but this does not result in any changes.

• I've also tried to set the agentCanEditName flag on the signer (https://developers.docusign.com/docs/esign-rest-api/reference/envelopes/enveloperecipients/#core-recipient-parameters/) in the API, also without results.

So I have no idea how to allow the signer to change his/her own name, apart from using 'Other actions-> Assign to someone else' from the top menu. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

After sending the question to Docusign support, the conclusion was that they don;t support this. The only way to implement this is by:

• Instruct the signer to use the reassign the signing responsibility (https://support.docusign.com/en/guides/signer-guide-signing-change-signer)
• Use in-person signing, where the host can opt to change the signer (https://support.docusign.com/en/guides/ndse-user-guide-in-person-signing).

Unfortunately, both methods require prior knowledge about the signing process from the signer. Simply editing a form field during the signer process is not possible.

Answer 2

Have you tried to use allowReassign: "true" in the envelopeDefinition. This offer the ability for a signer to forward the envelope to someone else and seems to be close to what you are looking for: https://support.docusign.com/en/guides/signer-guide-signing-change-signer

That being said, back to your problem, I'm not sure what is the real problem but several features are incompatible with Allowing recipient to change their name that might be the case with your call/Account. Do you have anything special enabled?

Answer 3

Thank you for reaching out. Signing groups maybe what you're looking for: https://support.docusign.com/en/guides/ndse-user-guide-signing-groups

It allows one person from a group to sign the documents vs a specific person.