Documents and e signatures

Thank you so much! The text block selection was a good solution :)

Thanks for asking the question @ClaireB and @ConorCunningham as I was about to ask very similar one as I am looking at the usage of the Personio templates and e-singature tool vs using Docusign.

@ConorCunningham - if you’ve got any comparison tables to using Personio in-house e-singature to Docusign that would be helpful.

Something I struggled to find out how to do in my immediate need was how to load a document/pdf into Personio and then issue it for e-signature (like you can with Docusign)… it appears that I had to create a Template - which I would then select for e-signature…

Can I check that you can just load a document, then assign spaces for signature and then - Boom - send it…?

Hi @JHBEM,

Happy to answer on behalf of Conor, since he is on well deserved holidays 😊.

We don’t have any comparison table of Personio and other software products in general, but it is possible to request an e-signature from your employees without having to create a template. To do so, you only need to upload the document to the employee profile and click on request signature within the documents tab of the employee’s profile. 

That being said, a template must be created in order for several individuals to sign the document. The process explained above, is meant for documents that only need to be signed by the employee in whose profile the document was uploaded.

I hope I could clarify your questions with this info. Let me know if you have any further questions.

Have a great start in to the week.

Best,

Andrea

Hi @Andrea - Thank you for the response.

To confirm if I’m loading an employee document, where it needs the employee and someone with singature authority for the employer (almost every any document) then it needs to be in Template, it can’t use the 1st method you’ve proposed??

If so, it dramatically reduces the potential usage of Personio e-singature as most documents will require two signatures. One from an authorised signatory of the company, the second from the individual.

If it could be made possible to make it have two signatories that would be very helpful.

I would prefer to use as much of a single platform as posisble and not have to hand-off to another piece of software… but can do if required.

Also in such a document can I get them to fill in any additional data?

e.g. physical/postal address, bank details etc.

or can they only be used as signature?

Hey JHBEM, I am also looking to create a Emergency Contact Form that can be filled out AND have e-sign.  If you hear of any solutions, please let me know.

Hi @JHBEM,

That is correct. If a document is uploaded, e.g., as PDF in an employee profile, only the signature of the profile’s owner can be requested. With templates, it is possible to add several signature placeholders and accordingly request more than one signature. When adding a template to your settings, it is also possible to add free placeholders in which employees can add further information such as address, bank details, etc. For this, employees require edit rights for the document category in which the template was saved, so that they can add this information themselves. 

My question for you would be: Why is it not an option for you to use templates for these cases? 

Another option is to add the Attributes for address, bank details, etc. as an Onboarding step, so this information is already saved in the employee profiles. This way, you only would need to add attribute placeholders in the template and Personio would place them automatically when you or the employee create the document in the employee profile. 

This method would save time for you and your employees :).

Looking forward to reading your comments.

Best,

Andrea

@Andrea 

I have been finding that as we use Google Docs and not Microsoft Office all the formatting of my document templates goes wrong when I insert it as a Template.

As such I’m not able to use Templates reliably.

Hi @JHBEM,

Google Docs should also work if you follow the recommendations of the following help center articles:

• Further Information on Document Templates
• Important Points When Using Document Templates
• Why is the Upload of a document template not working?

I am aware that creating document templates can seem time-consuming in the beginning, but once you become aware of which details can mess the formatting of your documents when uploading, the process is much smoother. Templates save a bunch of manual work, so it’s definitely worth the try!

Let me know if there is anything else I can clarify or support you with. 

@MrsBURTON2012 I hope my answer shared before is also helpful for you :).

Best,

Andrea

Thanks @Andrea - I think its just a lot easier using Docusign - hence why it would be good to have the comparison analysis on why Personio think I should use Personio instead.

I appreciate that many enterprise organisations use Microsoft - it seems many of the SMB/SME sector use Google (as it is cheaper) and so the formatting effort is a pain.

I do acknowledge that in time we would hope to create templates that are indeed operational in Personio.

I’m trying to establish if the cost of Personio e-singature in addition to our business/contract need for Docusign is the most cost-effective approach… etc.

As we are a small company then a subscription model means we are only using it say maybe on average 5times a month so it’s per use very expensive.

Good morning @JHBEM,

I understand why a comparison of functionalities would be helpful. I will ask again internally, just in case our growth team for example has this information :).

Just to clarify, uploading documents from Word or other Microsoft Office tools for templates is actually not better. The best way to avoid format changes when uploading documents is using Open Office or Google Docs. 

I will let you know if my colleagues can share with me a comparison between DocuSign and our e-Signature functionalities. 

Have a great day!

Best,

Andrea

@MrsBURTON2012 - for an emergency contact then I understand in some countries this needs to be witnessed/signed by the emergency contact.

In the UK as this is self-service then I’ve not a use-case.
But I have created these as self-service attributes (fields) on the employee data record.
 

Happy to show you what I’ve done - feel free to Direct Message me.