Recipient roles when sending documents
Adobe Acrobat Sign for business and enterprise service levels have the option to expand the roles for Agreement recipients beyond just the Signer to better match their workflow requirements. The current roles that can be enabled are:
- Signer (always enabled for all customers)
- Approver (small business, business, and enterprise only)
- Acceptor (enterprise only)
- Certified Recipient (enterprise only)
- Form Filler (small business, business, and enterprise only)
- Delegator (enterprise only)
- Electronic Seals (enterprise only)
When enabled, each recipient in an Agreement will have their role individually configurable, with Signer being the default.
To enable/disable Role options, login as an Account Administrator and navigate to: Account Settings > Send Settings > Allowed Recipient Roles
Signers are required to apply at least one signature to an Agreement. This role is the default recipient role. Each signer on a transaction needs to have at least one required signature field assigned to them. If the system does not find a signature field for the signer, it automatically generates a signature block at the end of the document.
The appearance of a signature block is a good indicator of a signature field not being assigned correctly.
Approvers are not required to sign or interact with any fields. All approvers need to do is enter their name before sending the transaction to the signers. Fields can be assigned to approvers, and if those fields are required, they need to fill them out.
The approver role works well for situations where someone needs to "okay" a document before it's sent off to the signer.
Acceptors are mechanically the same as Approvers in that they do not need to apply a signature, but if form fields are assigned to them, they will be available as you would expect.
The Acceptor role is appropriate when the Recipient needs to acknowledge an acceptance of the Agreement without formally approving the content.
Certified Recipients can have no (zero) form fields assigned to them. During their "signature" process, they will be asked to either delegate, decline or acknowledge the agreement.
- Delegating will transfer the Certified Recipient role to the nominated delegatee
- Declining will terminate the Agreement
- Acknowledging the Agreement continues the signature cycle
Recipients assigned the Certified Recipient role are explicitly excluded from declining an agreement.
Open a ticket with Acrobat Sign Customer Support to have them configure the option to allow Certified Recipients to decline.
Designed specifically for customers that have a need to fill in form content during the signature process, but don't have the systems in place to programmatically build custom documents or push field content from a database to the form.
Form Fillers can be designated within a signature cycle, but are not required to apply a signature of any kind. All field types can be assigned to a Form Filler, including signature fields if desired.
The delegator role is designed for workflows that require a person to make the final judgment on who the correct next person is that should sign or approve the document.
This role does not replace the ad hoc option for a signer/approver to delegate their participation. Rather this role is used when a human check point/routing option is needed in a workflow that has to initiate Agreements without knowing the full recipient list beforehand.
Once the delegator role is selected, you will notice that a second icon/menu is available. This second level menu allows you to chose what role the delegated to party should be. Signer is default.
You cannot delegate to a delegator role.
Electronic seals (e-seals) provide the same legal validity as a company rubber stamp on paper, where no individual signer authenticity is conveyed. The main difference between a seal and a signature is that a signature is meant for individuals / natural persons, whereas a seal is used by a legal entity (business or organization) and can be applied by more than one person or system under the control or supervision of the legal entity.
Exposing the electronic seal option demands additional configuration steps that can be reviewed here >
