How Does ezsign.ca Work?

Understanding the operational flow of ezsign.ca reveals a streamlined, user-friendly process designed to digitize and secure document signing. The platform aims to replace traditional paper-based methods with an efficient electronic workflow, ensuring legal validity and data integrity throughout. Here’s a breakdown of how ezsign.ca works:

Step 1: Document Upload and Preparation

The initial phase involves getting your documents into the ezsign.ca system and preparing them for signature.

• Uploading Documents: Users can easily upload various document formats, including PDFs, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. This flexibility ensures that most common business documents can be processed.
• Converting to PDF: The system likely converts uploaded Word, Excel, or PPT files into secure PDF format, as PDFs are the standard for legally binding digital documents due to their fixed layout and security features.
• Adding Fields: This is where you prepare the document for signing. Users can drag and drop a wide range of fields onto the document, such as:
  • Signature fields: For signers to apply their electronic signature.
  • Initial fields: For initialing specific pages or clauses.
  • Text boxes: For signers to fill in information like names, addresses, or dates.
  • Checkboxes/Radio buttons: For selections or acknowledgements.
  • Date fields, Amount fields, City fields: For specific data capture.
  • Attachment fields: Allowing signers to upload supporting documents.
• Creating Templates: For recurring documents, users can create and save unlimited templates. This means you prepare a document once with all its fields, and then reuse it whenever needed, significantly speeding up the process.
• Setting Field Dependencies: Advanced users can set conditions where fields appear or hide based on inputs in other fields, creating dynamic and smart forms.

Step 2: Configuring Workflow and Sending

Once the document is prepared, the next step involves defining the signing process and sending the document out.

• Defining Signing Order: For documents requiring multiple signatures, users can set a specific signing order, ensuring that each party signs in the correct sequence.
• Setting Deadlines and Reminders: Deadlines can be assigned to documents, and automatic reminders can be configured to prompt signers who haven’t completed their task. This helps keep workflows on track.
• Selecting Signers: Users identify the recipients who need to sign the document by entering their email addresses.
• Personalized Messaging: Custom messages can be added to the email invitations sent to signers, providing context or specific instructions.
• Sending Options:
  • Individual Sends: Sending documents to one or a few recipients.
  • Bulk Send: A powerful feature to send the same document to many recipients at once, ideal for agreements that need to be signed by a large group (e.g., HR forms, consent forms).
  • Scheduled Sending: Documents can be set to be sent at a later date and/or time, perfect for pre-planning.

Step 3: Signing Process and Authentication

When recipients receive the document, ezsign.ca guides them through a secure signing experience.

• Accessing the Document: Signers receive an email invitation with a secure link to access the document on the ezsign.ca platform.
• Signer Authentication: To ensure identity, signers can be required to undergo double authentication via SMS, phone call, or a security question. This verifies that the person accessing the document is indeed the intended signer.
• Reviewing and Completing Fields: Signers review the document, fill in any required fields, and then apply their electronic signature. Ezsign.ca supports various signing methods, including drawing a signature, typing it, or uploading an image.
• Multi-Party and In-Person Signing: The platform supports multiple parties signing the same document collaboratively, as well as in-person signing where an agent can collect signatures face-to-face on a device.
• Legal Validity and Tamper-Proofing: Once signed, the system automatically applies a digital certificate to the PDF. This digital seal makes the document tamper-proof and legally valid, ensuring its integrity and authenticity. Any subsequent changes would invalidate the certificate.

Step 4: Tracking, Storage, and Audit Trail

After the document is signed, ezsign.ca continues to provide value through robust tracking and secure storage.

• Real-Time Tracking: Senders can monitor the status of documents in real-time from their dashboard, seeing who has viewed, signed, or yet to sign.
• Automatic Notifications: Senders receive automated summary emails once documents are fully signed.
• Secure Document Storage: All signed documents are securely stored on 100% Canadian servers, ensuring data sovereignty and compliance with local privacy regulations (Law 25, PIPEDA).
• Comprehensive Audit Trail: A detailed audit trail is generated for every document. This electronic evidence records every action taken on the document, including:
  • Signer IP addresses.
  • Timestamps of views, field completions, and signatures.
  • Authentication methods used.
  • Unique document identifiers.
    This audit trail serves as court-admissible proof of the signing process.

Step 5: Integration and Management

Ezsign.ca also offers capabilities for integrating with other systems and managing users. What to Expect from inovainc.ca

• API Access: Businesses can use the API (Application Programming Interface) to connect ezsign.ca with their internal systems (e.g., CRM, ERP) for automated document generation and bulk operations.
• User and Team Management: For organizations, the platform allows for managing multiple users, creating user groups, and activating/deactivating users as needed, providing administrative control and cost optimization.
• Personalized Branding: Users can customize emails and the signing interface with their own logo and branding.

In essence, ezsign.ca provides an end-to-end digital solution for secure, legally compliant, and efficient electronic document signing, tailored specifically for the Canadian business environment.