CODEWITHSUNDEEP
docusignapi
AnthonyV47
AnthonyV47

Reputation: 11

Position Extraction in DocuSign

I've been reviewing the DocuSign documentation to see if this feature is available through API. We currently work with one eSign vendor, OneSpan, who offers the feature of Position Extraction via PDF tags set up in the document (link below for reference). I'm curious if this same functionality is available in DocuSign and have been unable to find it within the documentation.

To give some background on the use case.. Our clients want to set up our documents with PDF tags and use those for creating eSign transactions. The goal of this is so they can be vendor agnostic since the eSign creation would rely on extracting the PDF tags as opposed to explicitly setting height/width and x/y coordinates.

OneSpan Link for Position Extraction: https://community.onespan.com/documentation/onespan-sign/guides/feature-guides/developer/position-extraction

Edit: So just to clarify what process our clients are looking to do, and some background as well. Our clients have their applications which they use to call our gateway of APIs for creating eSign transactions. Our APIs take in a generic eSign request, which we then convert to the appropriate vendor's eSign request structure before sending it out for creation. Certain clients use certain vendors, which is why we take in a generic request and convert it depending which vendor that client is subscribed to use.

Our clients are migrating away from an old legacy eSign vendor whose X/Y origin begins at the bottom left and also renders the PDF differently during the signing ceremony. When trying to migrate to a new vendor, our clients are facing pretty heavy obstacles in converting the X/Y coordinates, and height/width, so that signatures, fields, etc. appear correctly in the document in the new eSign vendor.

We were trying to think of a way to avoid this kind of problem in the future if we were to ever switch eSign vendors again. One of the ideas we're looking into is setting up PDF tags (some vendors seem to use different terms like "text tags", "anchor tags", etc) in the document itself. So say we have a signature PDF tag with the name "signature1", and this is where the OneSpan Position Extraction comes in that I linked. They offer the ability to basically extract the positioning of that signature PDF tag using the name that was set up in the PDF (so "signature1" in this case), and use that to create the signature block for the eSigning ceremony.

DocuSign is another potential vendor we may integrate later this year, and we wanted to see if similar functionality was available. If so, this would reduce the step of our clients from having to convert X/Y coordinates and height/width when switching to a different vendor.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 464

Answers (2)

Larry K
Larry K

Reputation: 49114

(I work for DocuSign)

Re your comment about "vendor agnostic" esignatures. That's a nice idea in theory but can lead to sub-standard solutions for the end customers. For example:

  • DocuSign offers built-in Responsive signing which greatly improves the usability of the signing ceremony on mobile and tablet devices. A "generic" eSignature integration that leaves out the capability enforces a more difficult user experience for the signers. DocuSign has many other features like that.
  • Most ISVs have competitors, and if you're adding eSignatures to your application then probably your competitors are too. In these cases, we've seen ISVs tightly integrate their application with multiple eSignature features. Later, when their ISV competitors add eSignatures too, the second ISV must either match or exceed the first ISV's eSignature integration. Otherwise, the second ISV is not competitive in the marketplace.

Bottom line is that a lowest common denominator solution can end up as a non-competitive solution.

Upvotes: 0

Inbar Gazit
Inbar Gazit

Reputation: 14050

Yes, you can do that. There are two ways to do that, depending on the original PDF.

One approach - using anchor tags. That would mean you look for certain words or digits (like "sign here") in the document. You position the tabs this way and you can later make an API call to determine their X/Y values

The other approach is using PDF Form Field Transformation where the PDF has meta-data that DocuSign can use to determine where to place tabs.

Again, using the same API calls, you can query the document for the resulting X/Y coordinates.

Upvotes: 0

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