Adoption Series: 5 ways you could be more productive using Docusign templates

By Rola Almalak - Manager, Customer Enablement & Adoption

Are you frequently sending the same or similar documents out to different recipients for signing, or are you regularly sending new documents to the same people? Then Docusign templates are set to become your best office buddy.

Say you have to send a non-disclosure form out to every potential client. The form stays the same, but the recipient keeps changing. Or, say you have to send a monthly report to your Board. The report changes each month, but the recipient list doesn’t. These repetitive tasks could be time-consuming and tedious. Not with Docusign templates.

Creating a template is similar to creating an envelope. You add documents, add recipients, specify messages, and select and place fields on the documents just like creating an envelope. The key difference is that you can save the template to be used again instead of preparing it as a one-time send.

Available with all Docusign plans, templates are an ideal blueprint for repeatable transactions. Here’s why:

1. Templates save time and boost productivity

Probably the biggest benefit of templates is the fact that they save you and your team time. Instead of individually preparing and sending out documents, you can quickly and easily get documents out to multiple people (or, send new documents to the same recipient list). The time you save in sending out docs can be put towards other tasks, such as building customer relationships or growing the business. Productivity is the real winner here.

2. Templates create a more consistent experience

Another time-saving feature of templates is the ability to use your saved templates to start a new envelope. Everything defined in the saved template can be applied and added to the new envelope. It not only saves time, but streamlines the process too. The template contains everything you need from the workflow and actions, through to who needs to do what on the envelope. It means you’re engaging with customers (whether internal or external) in a consistent way.

3. Templates can easily be modified

Say you need to change one signing field for a particular recipient. Or they need to sign one extra document. Not a problem. Templates can easily be changed on an ad-hoc basis. You can use the template as is; or you can add additional files, modify signing fields, add recipients, and add and modify messages. You can also control which files each recipient sees.

4. They can still be used if your document changes slightly from send to send

Template matching is a powerful feature that makes it easy to compare uploaded documents to previously saved templates. The system uses text recognition software to compare the new document to the one in your template – if a comparison (or, over a certain percentage of text, set by you) results in a match, you can apply that matching template to the document. All aspects – recipients, workflow, messages and signing fields – can be applied to the envelope in a few simple steps.

5. Templates are secure

With stringent rules around user access and permissions, you’ve always got control over who can access and modify templates. Once your template workflow is locked in, no-one can change that workflow unless they have the right permission. Or, you can opt to allow senders to change specific things like template recipients, messages or branding. If changes are made to a template, a full audit trail makes it easy to check back to see what changes were made, and when.

Learn more

To help you unlock the power of templates, and other Docusign features, visit the Docusign University.