Skip to main content

I need the following to be arranged but doubt how to set up the recipients

  1. HR Department must submit a form that needs to be send out to a Deparment Head for signing by that Department Head
  2. At above stage HR Department does not sign the form. They only submit the form after they filled in some important fields on the form (e.g. Country, Location, Salary)
  3. Since the name of the Department Head can be different HR must be able to fill in the Name and email address of the Department Head prior to sending the form
  4. Once the Department Head signed the form it will return to HR
  5. HR will put their final signature on the form

My initial idea was to create a template with following details:

  1. HR with “Needs to Sign” but they don’t have to Sign. They only have to fill in Custom Fields and then press the Send
  2. For Department Head I added this recipient without Name and Email address to that HR can fill this in prior to sending at stage 1
  3. I added HR again (3rd recipient) with requirement to sign

The problem is that in my  setup HR is always asked when Sending the form “Would you like to sign now or later”. What status should I give HR as first Recipient to allow them to edit the form and fill in the details without a need to sign?

Hello @Robbedoes ,

Welcome to the Docusign Community and thank you for posting your concerns!

You do not need to add HR as the first recipient, as the sender during the preparation screen they should be able to fill out any needed information and add any needed recipients. As for the rest of the signing order, it can remain the same, in other words, you would just need to remove the first HR.

If HR had any fields on the document assigned to them as the first signer, you can reassign them to the actual signer, if they are not allowed to edit the information you can set it as read-only: Read Only Fields

Let us know if you need further assistance with this.


Best regards,

Nathaly | Docusign Community Moderator
"Select as Best" below if you find the answer a valid solution to your issue!


Hello @nathaly.monge 

Thank you for your feedback. Let me explain the situation.

  1. HR will submit a form to a department head and the department head needs to sign that form
  2. Once HR received the signed form they will put the final signature file on it
  3. At the moment HR submits the form (so above 1) they need to fill on that form a number of customer fields like Country, Salary, Starting Date, Function level.

What I developeed is a Template using a PDF on which I added these Custom Fields. I HR is using that template (using “USE” option) they can fill in for example the name of the department head but they can not at that point fill in the custom fields. So, I thought I do need to add Recipeint HR first as Signer because I do not know how HR can fill in the PDF/ Custom fields before Sending to the department head. That is working but because HR is first recipient (how otherwise they can fill in the Custom Fields….) that needs to fill in the custom fields. I do not see how HR can fill in the Custom Fields before sending the form to the department head. When pressig USE they can add recipients but they can not fill in the Custom Fields directly.

Trust it is more clear now.

Appreciate your support.


Hello @Robbedoes ,

Thank you for reaching back.

I understood your expected workflow, when I say that “ you don’t need to add HR as the first recipient and that they can add information on to the fields without being part of the signing order” I’m not referring to them changing the template each time they go to use it. However, with your explanation it seems like the template is set to “Quick send only”: Template Usage Options

The workaround I provided was for those cases that have the template with Advanced Edit, that way you do not need to add HR as a recipient and they can fill in the information on the needed fields. 

In the case you do not want to set the template to Advanced Edit, when they go to send the envelope they can select the Sign Now option to add the needed information (they won’t actually sign anything unless the have a signature field assigned to them in that first recipient), it would only be to fill that information out.

Now, the person that does need to sign might not be able to see the information HR added unless the option “When an envelope is sent, write the initial value of the fields for all recipients” is enabled by an admin under Settings > Sending Settings: Fields and Properties

Let us know if you need further assistance with this.


Best regards,

Nathaly | Docusign Community Moderator
"Select as Best" below if you find the answer a valid solution to your issue!


@nathaly.monge Dear Nathaly, all clear now. Thank you for your kind support.


Hello @Robbedoes ,

Thank you for reaching back.

If you found my response to be a useful solution to your question, please mark it as the best answer by clicking “Select as Best” to make it easier for other users to find. I hope you have a great day!

Let us know if you need further assistance with this.


Best regards,

Nathaly | Docusign Community Moderator
"Select as Best" below if you find the answer a valid solution to your issue!


Reply