Anyone who had to get documents signed early in the pandemic knows how harrowing and dangerous the situation was. Nobody wanted to meet face-to-face, but we still had to conduct business.
Today, in an effort to simplify online document signing, Zoom and DocuSign announced a new integration that lets you review and sign a document right within a Zoom meeting, greatly simplifying the legal requirements and eliminating the need to get in a car and go to an office.
“DocuSign eSignature for Zoom enables organizations to reimagine agreement processes with virtual, face-to-face signing experiences that accelerate time to agreement – while building trust and loyalty,” the company wrote in a blog post announcing the new feature.
Jerome Levadoux, SVP, head of eSignature Products at DocuSign, says that the pandemic provided a perfect use case for remote document signing. “The past few years have highlighted the need for agility and better productivity tools to meet the evolving needs of customers,” he said. That means providing tools to get the job done in one tool online without opening Zoom for the meeting and DocuSign to sign the contracts. With everything in the same application, you get a workflow that’s much more like what you would get in person.
Chances are in most situations, the person signing has had a chance to review the document and the meeting is simply to display and sign the documents. The way it works is you add DocuSign from the Zoom marketplace. This adds DocuSign to the Zoom interface. You start a meeting, click the DocuSign button to start the workflow and select the documents to be signed.
You then pass control to the first signer, complete any final discussions and have the first person sign. If there are multiple signers you would pass control to the next person to sign. After the meeting all attendees will receive a PDF of the signed contract, sent to the emails associated with the Zoom invite.
If notarization is required, the notary can view the person’s identification as part of the process and sign the documents when it is their turn. Thirty-four states now allow online notarization.
Throughout the pandemic, we have seen Zoom become a central piece in businesses operating online. We have also seen other SaaS tools allow us to continue doing business, even when we couldn’t be together. Even as we return to the office, business can continue to be conducted this way without having to travel to meet face-to-face, saving not only time, but the environmental impact of multiple parties coming to a central location.