How can a signer correct an answer they provided on a document after they have signed it?

​I wanted to pop back on here to note our process for these situations now that I've learned more about DocuSign (in case it helps someone else).  The goal was to preserve the envelope since we are charged per envelope, so we wanted to avoid voiding an envelope and starting over whenever possible.  We have used all of DocuSign's awesome tools to try and prevent errors on the forms as much as possible but it seems impossible to prevent everything.

We have several templates in an envelope and 5 roles in our signing order.  It's common that the last role in the signing order (who is like a reviewer) finds an issue on one or more forms.  That final role isn't truly a "signer" but I gave them an "approve" button so that they can either click approve to complete the envelope (if everything looks good) or reassign the envelope back to the sender (me) via "Assign to someone else" for correction.  Signer 5 will note what needs to be corrected when they reassign the envelope to me and I determine the best course of action which is usually adding additional tags to a form or re-adding the template that had errors into the envelope and re-adding the appropriate signer/s into the workflow and putting a text box with the note "Do Not Use" on the templates that had errors.  This is working well for us and is allowing us to preserve the envelope and have signers only fill out the one or two forms they messed up on instead of all of them (which would open the door for more errors!). 

I hope this info helps someone else. :-) 

Hi, thank you for your comment. I am a new template user and it is so very helpful! Questions:

1) when Signer 5 notes what needs to be corrected, where do you make those notations?

2) when you add additional tags to a form, is it just a clean version that was signed earlier (the ones with the errors); however, you are only tagging the places that need to be signed?

3) can you please share with us where you place the "Do Not Use" text?

4) on the version that you add "Do Not Use," are you printing and using the pages that do not contain error? Not clear on how you would use that version if it has "Do Not Use." I am just not clear on "...or re-adding the template that had errors into the envelope and re-adding the appropriate signer/s into the workflow and putting a text box with the note "Do Not Use" on the templates that had errors."

Thanks!

Cheryl

​Hi.  Thanks for your questions.  Here you go and please let me know if you need anything else:

1.Signer 5 will reassign the envelope to me and add a note regarding what needs to be corrected. They do this by going to “Other Actions” and selecting “Assign the Someone Else.” A dialogue box will open where they put my name, and email address and then provide the note regarding what needs to be corrected. The envelope will then flow to me and I review and make the necessary corrections (since I’m also the sender of the envelope).

2. It depends on the errors the signer made. I either:

1. Add additional tags to the signed form to have the signer make corrections (sometimes it’s another text field to provide additional explanation, or I “cross out” their prior answer to a question with a read only text box (-----) and have them initial/date their correction), or
   1. I add a clean version of the form they made the error(s) on and provide guidance on how to complete it correctly the second time. In this scenario, they have to complete the form again but it’s still within the original envelope. Some of our forms HAVE to be error free and cross-outs are not allowed so this is our best option. 

• Note, to re-add a template to an existing envelope, you have to have a version of the template that has a different signing order and signer role names for it to work. For example, my original template signer roles/signing order goes: 5 – Contract Worker, 10 – Supplier, 15 – SLMO, 20 – PERSEC, 25 – Non-Gov. For the template that I re-add to the envelope, the signer roles/signing order has to be different than the original template (for example, name the Contract Worker role as Contract Worker CORRECTION and give it a signing order number of 50).

3. I place a read-only text box on the pages that have errors/that we don’t want to use and put the words “DO NOT USE” in 72 point, red font.  This way, the role that receives this paperwork at the end of the workflow knows which form to review/use/print for the final copy.

4. Yes, we are only printing/using the pages that don’t contain an error. So, this would only be in the case of us re-adding a new copy of the form to the envelope to have the user complete again. We are simply “stamping” the bad copy with “DO NOT USE.” This is the best option for us since we can’t remove the bad/errored copy of the form from the envelope after it’s signed.

I hope this helps!

Hi,

I just wanted to say that your workaround is brilliant. There are times that DocuSign, with all its might, does not provide a straight forward out of the box solutions for our scenarios. and it would be up to us to come up with an innovative solution using the tools we have. To that extent, your solution hits the bulls eye. I am going to implement it in our office from now on.

Thank you for sharing it.

​Hi. I'm so pleased the solution is helpful for you.  Best of luck and let me know if you have additional questions as you implement this workaround.  Take care!