Overview of Send in Bulk
The Send in Bulk (SiB) feature allows users to create a one-use "parent" template of an agreement and supply a list of recipients. A "child" agreement is generated for each recipient record when the Send in Bulk transaction is sent. Up to 1000 child transactions can be effected, and all child agreements are discrete agreements and autonomous insofar as the other agreements generated.
However, because the child agreements are all created from the same parent template, users can review the Send in Bulk parent transaction on the Manage page and review the overall status of the child agreements.
There are two methods to add the list of recipient records to the template:
- Manually - In this use case, the sender manually types (or pastes) in the user email addresses.
- This option limits the number of recipients to one external recipient,
- The sender can be included as an optional recipient after the external recipient signs.
- Comma-Separated Value (CSV) file upload - The CSV is a spreadsheet where each row is a recipient record, and the various columns define properties of the agreement, each of which can be personalized for the recipients of the agreement. This gives the sender much broader control over how the agreement can be customized for the recipients. The advantages of the CSV file method are:
- You can have multiple recipients. (Up to 100 per agreement.)
- Per recipient personalization:
- Recipient name
- Role
- Authentication method
- Private recipient message
- Agreement level customizations:
- Agreement name
- Localization
- Global agreement message
- Expiration deadline
- Signature flow
- Custom merge fields where the CSV inserts a value into a field on the agreement, allowing recipient-specific details to be added to the agreement, such as a street address, list of goods or services, prices, and discounts.
Availability:
Send in Bulk is available for Acrobat Pro and Acrobat Sign Solutions license plans.
Configuration scope:
The controls for Send in Bulk can be enabled at the account and group levels.
Reporting for Send in Bulk
There are several options for generating report data for the agreements included in a Send in Bulk. The option used will depend on the type of information you want to collect.
All reporting explicitly tied to the Send in Bulk parent object can be accessed on the Manage page by selecting the Bulk Sends filter and then opening the specific Send in Bulk parent template you want to review.
If you want to review only the base completion rate or drill down to find an individual agreement, the Agreements summary table is available in the Actions list.
A printable table of all child agreements can be generated using the View Activity Report action.
A CSV-based definition of the agreement, along with full field-level input per recipient, is available using the Download Form Field Data action.
The standard reporting environment can produce printable charts and graphs and provide field-level data in CSV format.
When initially uploading a CSV to import the recipients, any formatting errors of elements managed by Acrobat Sign will trigger an error link on the template configuration page.
Select the error link to display the list of errors by the row number of the CSV file:
All CSV formatting errors must be corrected before the Send in Bulk transaction can be submitted, and child agreement generation can begin.
Some errors are not detected as issues during the CSV upload process, but they are discovered while the child agreements are being generated. For example, assigning a role or authentication method to a recipient that is in conflict with the group settings. These run-time errors are logged in an error report that you can download from the Manage page by selecting the Download Error Report action for the parent template:
The system adds a line to the error log containing the recipient's row information when errors are discovered.
Processing of the CSV file resumes and generates a child agreement for every row of the CSV that doesn't trigger an error.
Recipients identified on the error report must have the agreement re-sent to them in a new transaction.
No overt alert is delivered to the sender for run-time errors.
Senders should always check the downloadable report for the parent template after the generation of child agreements is completed.
The parent template includes a summary table in the Actions list for all child agreements. The table identifies the number of agreements in each status.
Clicking into the summary table opens a sortable view of the individual child agreements. The records on the summary table are active link to the agreements, allowing for easy manipulation of individual agreements as needed.
The View Activity Report option in the Actions list provides a Document Execution Report. This report provides a more detailed (and printable) summary of the child agreements by status.
The Download Form Field Data activity downloads the field data for all child agreements created by the parent template.
Each row of the CSV represents one agreement record. The record is structured to provide:
- All of the recipient information first:
- Recipient name (captured when the signature is applied)
- Recipient email
- Recipient role
- Recipient authentication method and value
- Recipient private message
- The agreement information after the recipient info:
- CC'd party emails
- Locale
- Reminder information
- Expiration information
- Agreement name
- Agreement global message
- Order of signatures
- Custom field data is listed after the agreement fields. This includes all fields included in the document template or authored onto the documents.
- Custom fields are listed alphabetically based on their field name.
- The Agreement ID is the last field.
Standard agreement reporting captures the child agreements but only understands them as regular agreements. No broader relationship is understood in terms of some agreements related through a parent agreement template.
Using the name filter can allow you to generate reporting based on that value if you use unique naming conventions in your Send in Bulk campaigns.
Customers that heavily leverage Send in Bulk may opt to dedicate a group to the purpose. This allows for finer tuning of the recipient experience and allows reporting to filter agreements based on the group.
Best practices
Use well-tested templates for your base documents. This is particularly critical if you have multiple recipients. A few rounds of field-level testing to ensure the fields are properly assigned and capturing the correct content with useful validations takes significantly less time than canceling hundreds of individual agreements.
When building your templates, use meaningful field names so your reporting returns meaningful column headers.
Configuration considerations with regard to Data Governance
Send in Bulk has a property called the "roll-up" that dictates how many notifications the sender receives with regard to the number of child agreements created by the SiB template. The default value is three, meaning the sender is only notified when three or fewer child agreements are generated. The roll-up setting isn't exposed to customers and may only be altered by the Acrobat Sign support team.
Data Governance dictates how soon an agreement is deleted from the Acrobat Sign system after it reaches a terminal status (Complete, Canceled, or Expired).
Customers who need to interact with completed agreements sent through a Send in Bulk process may want to extend the roll-up number (possibly to an "unlimited" value) to ensure they receive the "Completed" notifications of child agreements before they are deleted automatically from the system by Data Governance.
It may be worth investigating the Power Automate integration to automate any post-completion activities to reduce both the manual work of users and to safeguard against gaps where an agreement might be lost to data governance rules.
Things to know
- The new Send in Bulk interface is still in development, and more options are anticipated in future releases (e.g., additional authentication methods, agreement-defined CC'd parties, agreement-defined reminders).
- The option for Sender Signs First found in the classic version of Send in Bulk is currently not in the new version but is expected in a future release for the manual process. Customers that are using the CSV upload method must add the sender to the CSV as a recipient in each record where the sender must sign.
- Changing the group selector does not change the logo on the sender's page. The subsequent emails and signing experience do use the correct logo for the group from which the agreement is sent.
- Canceling all child agreements of a Send in Bulk transaction at the (parent) template level is only possible if no child agreements have been signed. If any child agreements are signed, the Cancel activity is removed from the template's interface, and existing agreements must be canceled at the agreement level.
- The CSV file option has a lot of optional fields, but only an email is required. Getting familiar with the CSV process will make the more advanced field options (like merge fields) less daunting and open up the more valuable possibilities that the CSV offers.
