@srlee 

In DocuSign, there is no direct way to prevent users from creating their own document custom fields if they have the permissions to create templates. However, there are several approaches you can take to better control and standardize the use of custom fields:

Roles and Permissions:

Use DocuSign's Admin Tools to set up specific roles and permissions. While you can't specifically restrict the creation of custom fields, you can limit template creation to certain users who are trained to follow the standard procedures.

Template Management:

Centrally manage and distribute templates. Designate a group of admins or a committee responsible for creating and maintaining templates. This way, you can ensure that all templates adhere to the organization’s standards.

Custom Field Libraries:

Use Field Templates to create a library of standard fields that can be easily added to any document. Encourage or mandate the use of these standard fields instead of creating new ones.

That said, I think this would be a good enhancement that could be added to the permission profiles. 

Thank you for your feedback.  Option 1 and 2 are not realities for us at this time.  We’ve been using D/S for about 8 years and either/both would not be a welcomed restriction.  :-(   Looking back, I wish we had had a little more control around the template creation permissions, but, that would have created a bottleneck that we were trying to eliminate.  sigh...

Option #3 is worth a shot, but I am not aware of a way to manage/review what templates use which custom fields without looking at them one by one.  And, even once implemented, there’s no way to ensure that they follow the guidelines…….unless I’m not aware of a report/etc to let me view fields used on templates?

Hi @srlee,

Thank you for following up.

Unfortunately, there is no “Custom Fields” column in our Template report.

However, I find a lot of value on this idea. And, feedback that can improve our users’ experience is always welcome. I encourage you to consider submitting your idea to be reviewed by our development team for possible implementation. If you’re a Docusign Administrator for a corporate plan, you have the additional option of filing your request through a support case, or by reaching out to your Account Team. We invite you to share your product suggestions and feature requests on our dedicated ideas page (https://community.docusign.com/ideas), where we can collaborate to shape the future of our product together.

Feel free to let us know if you need further assistance with this. 

Thank you for using Docusign, we hope you have a wonderful rest of your day! 

Best regards,  

Alejandro R. | Docusign Community Moderator  

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