@Andreas Eklöf

There is an option to download the signed documents and the Certificate of Completion (CoC) as a package. In DocuSign this is called “Combined” download and it will give you a single PDF with the merged documents, but I think you have already discovered that option.

Combined download works only with the standard electronic signature accounts, which do not have Standard Based Signatures (digital certificates for e.g. AES or QES) enabled. This is to avoid invalid documents, when merging the documents into a single PDF.  As it is an account-wide setting, it will also prevent the combined download for non-SBS envelopes in the same account.

If you tick the checkbox “Combine all PDFs into a single file” and you see that the document selection changes and is grayed out, this is due to the above stated. The Certificate of Completion has been unchecked automatically. This explains why you only downloaded the document, which is still checked, but not the CoC, which has been automatically unchecked.

For documents with digital certificates, like AES or QES it is recommended to keep the files separately and download them as ZIP file by selecting “All” and not ticking the “Combine all PDFs into a single file” checkbox.

Merging the documents using a separate tool is not a good idea, as it will break the embedded certificates. Therefore, the resulting document is invalid, as it has been tampered with and looses it’s legally binding.

Hello @Andreas Eklöf ,

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@Michael.Rave 
Hi, I have also users who are very annoyed about this. @Andreas Eklöf  is from Sweden just as my company and other companies delivering the same service as Docusign has this ability (to get the certificate and signed document in one pdf) even when stronger authentication mechanism are used. I therefor guess that they incorporate the certificate of completion directly into the signed document before sealing the pdf with a digital certificate?

But I also came across this Docusign article, Is there a way to combine the summary page with the signed document instead of having them separately? | Community (docusign.com)
Here it says it is possible for the sender to download both files as a single pdf but the article does not talk about Standard Based Signatures (digital certificates for e.g. AES or QES) is enabled for the account or not.
 

Would you say that the above article is for Accounts with the standard electronic signature only?

Best regards

Per

EDIT
I tested the above article and after checking the “Attach certificate of completion to envelope” I was able to combine into one pdf file even that our account has “ID Check Remote for QES -
Wallet authentication service”  included.​​​​​​

@PerEdner

Yes, the article only references on how the process is, but does not differentiate between the standard electronic signature only accounts, where this is fully applicable and covers the high majority of Docusign customers and accounts.

The behaviour for Standard Based Signature accounts is different and there are further technical differences if you are applying an AES or QES signature, how the certificate was issued and by whom, etc. that will have an impact. In some cases you may be able to download the combined document and it works as expected, in other combinations it is not possible as the merging process would destroy the individual certificates. A lot has changed over the last couple of years in that area, so large customers may even experience differences between accounts that have been created at a different point in time and may have different backend settings.

Similar there are scenarios where disabling the Docusign platform seal can make sense, e.g. if only QES signatures are used in the account and there is no additional layer of security needed. Also some validators do not handle these well, so there might be the requirement to disable the platform seal for a specific account. However, no standard electronic signatures should be sent from that account for obvious reasons.

Downloading a combined version of documents is only recommended for non digital signatures. If there are digital signatures present, regardless of the level it is recommended to always download separate files, as those combined files may not include the digital signatures or they show as invalid.