Anchor Tags

An eSign Anchor Tag is a specially formatted text embedded into Word/Excel/PDF documents, that defines signing tags for eSign to render on a document during the signing ceremony. In version 1 of Anchor Tags, we’ll support the following types of tags (Signature, Initial, Date Time, Free Text), and we’ll add the support for the remaining tags in later releases.

Two things need to be done for clients to get this feature.

• Need to subscribe to eSign Anchor Tag service, so it gets enabled for you.
• If using eSign APIs, set the new Document object property HasAnchorTags to true, to notify the service to scan the document for anchor tags. Refer to the API Reference for Create/Update Session.

NOTE: Do NOT just set all documents HasAnchorTags to true, as your sessions will take longer to process.

By subscribing to this feature it also makes it available in eSign UI on step 3 of uploading documents. Where you can select the document(s) that has/have tags and click on the “Read Tags” button.

The text that defines the tag must start and end with a single special character that doesn’t appear in the uploaded document, and the client has the freedom to define what the opening and closing characters should be. e.g. the default opening character is ‘<‘ and the default closing is ‘>’, but the administrator can change them for you as desired, e.g. ‘#’ and ‘#’.

NOTE: Know that if these characters exist in the document then any text between them will be treated as a tag and it will get removed from the document, but no actual tag will appear on your final document. So, be careful about this.

Now, let’s explain the tag syntax, assuming the opening/closing characters are the default.

As of v1 of this feature, we support only 4 types of eSign tags:

– DateTime (or only Date or Time) tag
– Signature tag
– Initial tag
– Text tag

syntax format: <[Tag Type]_[Tag Option]_[Role Name]_[Tag Width in pixels]>

Definitions:

1. Tags Types:

• DateTime:
  There are 3 possible values for this (dt = datetime, d = date only, t = time only)

   

  • Tag Options:
    req for Required
    opt for Optional
    aut for Auto-Fill
• Signature:
  Specified as, sig

   

  • Tag Options:
    req for Required
    opt for Optional
• Initial:
  Specified as, ini

   

  • Tag Options:
    req for Required
    opt for Optional
• Text:
  Specified as, txt

   

  • Tag Options:
    req for Required
    opt for Optional

1. Role Name
   • This can be any name you want that matches your roles in eSign. If you mistype a role then it will not get mapped to the corresponding eSign role and your document will need to be mapped manually through eSign UI.
2. Tag Width
   • This is in pixels, if not provided or value is below the minimum zone value, then the zone will be set to its default value.
     • Signature’s minimum width is: 80px, and default: 175px
     • Initial’s minimum width is: 35px, and default: 45px
     • Date/Time minimum width is: 50px, and default: 100px
     • Text’s minimum width: 20px, and default: 175px

Examples 1:
Tag of datetime, required, for role buyer. Will default to the default width.

<dt_req_buyer>

Tag of date only, required, for role buyer, with 150px width.

<dt_req_buyer_150>

Example 2:
Tag of time only, optional, for role seller, will default to default size since 10px is under minimum size.

<t_opt_seller_10>

Example 3:
Tag of signature, required, for role seller, a width of 100px.

<sig_req_seller_100>

The eSign web service allows client integrations to create and track signing sessions as well as provide user account provisioning and management.  Session creation mechanisms are flexible and allow creation of signing sessions with or without document or signer information.  Documents uploaded using the web service can automatically apply pre-defined templates making session creation and document reuse easy and fast.  The web service also exposes flexible methods of retrieving electronically signed documents accompanied by signing session metadata.

This document contains workflow descriptions and integration strategies in order to ensure a smooth integration for developers.  High level diagrams accompany descriptions to display the general workflow of interacting with the eSign web service for account and signing session creation and management.  Integration strategies discussed in this document attempt to account for best practices and provide points of consideration for a successful API integration.  The descriptions are a general guideline while the API provides flexibility in order to accommodate unique integration solutions.

This API documentation is designed to assist integration through the eSign web service.  Developers should thoroughly review the API reference and workflow recommendations in order to achieve a successful integration.