Do not reorder my recipients for me

Thank you for sharing this idea with us ​@rollervides, ​ We’ve reviewed it and appreciate the thought behind it.

This request is not on our current roadmap, so we’ve marked it as parked for now

Although the request is not planned at the moment, we value your input, as it helps inform future enhancements should priorities change.

Sincerely,

Melanie | Docusign Community Moderator

In many business workflows, the signing order does not matter because all parties are meant to sign in parallel. The recipient list is often arranged in a specific order simply to make field placement and verification easier.

Automatically alphabetizing the recipients removes that manual structure and creates extra steps, since a signing order has to be temporarily applied just to keep the intended layout, then removed before sending. This increases the risk of errors and slows down the process for every envelope.

Even if signing order is turned off, the system should preserve the manual recipient order the sender selected.

It would be great to have a setting that keeps recipients in the order I put them, but still lets everyone sign at the same time.

Right now, using a signing order makes later recipients wait for earlier ones to finish, which just wastes time. The only workaround is to set a signing order to place the fields, then remove it before sending. This works, but it’s extra steps and can cause mistakes. Ultimately, keeping the order I set without forcing alphabetizing or waiting would make things much faster and easier.

​@rollervides 

Not sure if this will help (certainly not as good as having DocuSign fix the issue...) but, if you check off signing order and always remember to change the number BEFORE adding a name - it will keep the names in the order you put them.

So, if you add your first person, click ‘add another’ and change the order # to 1 - then add the second name, click ‘add another’ change the number to 1 add the third name, etc. you should end up with everyone getting the document simultaneously AND your order will be preserved. (this will also work with mixed number - ie some people get the documents first, after they sign another batch get the documents. As long as the number changes BEFORE the name is entered it should be fine).

NOTE: this will NOT WORK if you change a number after you add the name (then it will revert to alphabetical).

Anyway, this was what I experienced - granted, I only have 2-3 signers - your milage may vary.

good luck

mr1