Ever since COVID, document and signing workflows have been incorporated into everything. Dropbox has it. Microsoft Teams has it. Google Workspaces has it. If you need e-signatures, you probably have access to Docusign, Adobe, Hellosign, and so on.

But what exactly are we talking about when we say "document and signing workflow"?

Let's step back.

Most document workflows are about moving some work through review, commentary, revision and approval.

The old way to do this was to send a document out by email, receive 4 copies back, try to incorporate the comments and changes (or, more often, start incorporating the first set, give up half way and ignore the rest) and send it back out again. Repeat a few times before being printed, signed and scanned for approval:

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A modern document workflow basically works the same way, except without all the spaghetti. The routing, versions and comments are controlled from a centralized location, so the main back and forth is notification messages. We can leverage the collaborative features of the document format to record all changes and comments in one central version of the document, while still retaining a history of all changes:

The automation part is that the workflow steps are managed by the central server, advancing through depending on how each actor responds to the review / approval request.

At the end of the process you get your final document along with and some record of the approval process. This may or may not be accompanied with signatures of some sort.

Which brings us to a quote that might have been Benjamin Disraeli, or Mark Twain lying:

And just as in lies, there are signatures, signatures, and signatures.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

– Brendan

p.s. Enjoy this message? Read more at the Hyland Quality Systems website.