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Send your first document

An envelope is one or more documents sent to the people who need to sign them. Sending one takes four steps: add the document, say who signs and in what order, place the boxes each person fills in, then check it and send. The people you send to don’t need an account: each is emailed a signing link of their own.

Sign in at anz.signswifly.com.au/app, then choose Send for signing on the dashboard, or New envelope under Send & Sign.

Step 1: details and document

1. Under Envelope name, name it something your signers will recognise, such as “Services agreement – Smith”. It’s in the subject of their email, and heads their signing page.
2. Add a Message to signers if you like, and tags to find the envelope by later.
3. Add the document: click the upload box, or drag files onto it. PDF, Word (.doc, .docx, .rtf) and PNG or JPG images are all converted to PDF for you. On Solo and up, a Word file keeps its Word file as well until you send, so Edit wording on its menu can fix a typo (see The document editor). Each file can be up to 28 MB, and a PDF up to 300 pages (split a longer one into shorter PDFs), and an envelope holds up to 20 documents; drag their cards to put them in order. A PDF that SignSwifly can’t open safely (a damaged one, say) isn’t added, and the page says so: save it as a PDF again (for example, print it to PDF) and add that copy.
4. Choose Next: Recipients.

• No document yet? + Add blank document gives you an empty page to place fields on, and, on Solo and up, Template library starts from a ready-made one (see Templates), or Write a document opens the document editor, where you write the document and choose Send for signing to start an envelope with it (see The document editor).
• The envelope is saved as a draft from the first document on, so you can leave and finish it later from Send & Sign → Drafts. Save as draft, on every step, saves what you’ve done on that step and takes you there.

Step 2: recipients and signing order

For each person, enter their name and email, choose their role and choose + Add recipient. Signing it yourself and nobody else? Turn on I’m the only signer.

Everyone you’ve added to an envelope before, sent or not, is in your contact book (the 200 most recent). Choose From your contacts to tick several and add them as signers or viewers, or Use one to fill in the form for any other role. The Name and Email boxes suggest them as you type.

The role decides how each person is reached and when they sign. The round i beside Role sums them up, and the line under the list says what happens for the one you’ve chosen. A role your plan doesn’t include is still in the list, greyed out, with the plan it comes with. For more on each, see Recipient roles.

The order of the list is the signing order. Everyone on the same step is invited at once, and a step waits for the one before it. A witness is the exception: they’re asked to sign as soon as the person they witness has signed, even if others are still signing, and anyone on a later step than the witness waits for them. Each person you add starts at the Same time as the one above, so they’re invited together. Choose it to switch to After the one above, which puts them on the next step. Drag the rows to reorder them.

On Team and up, with two or more documents, All documents on a person’s card chooses which documents they’re given. A witness’s or nominated signer’s can’t go beyond their signer’s. See Recipient roles.

A witness is added after the signer they witness, who has to be on the list first.

To add a note for one person, open Personal message for this recipient before adding them, or Edit them later. It goes in their invitation, above the envelope’s message.

Deadline, reminders and the completion email

Under Session expiry & reminders and Extra settings you choose how long people have to sign, how they’re reminded, and who gets the email when everyone has signed. On the Free plan every envelope uses the standard settings:

• 90 days to sign. After that the signing links stop working and the envelope is marked Expired.
• A reminder each week to anyone whose turn it is, then every day in the last 3 days, with a final notice the day before.
• An email to you as each signer finishes.
• A completion email to everyone on the envelope and to you, with a link to the signed copies.

With Solo and up you choose your own: any deadline up to 730 days, or none; reminders on or off; who gets the completion email, and a message of your own in it; whether you’re emailed as each signer finishes; and a combined PDF of everything (see Download and verify). Daily, every-3-day, monthly and quarterly reminders come with Team and up, and so does Attach the signed files to completion emails.

Choose Next: Place fields.

Step 3: place the fields

Fields are the boxes each person fills in. Choose whose fields you’re placing under Placing for, pick a field, then click the page where it goes (on a phone or tablet, tap). Drag a field to move it, drag its corner to resize it, and click it for its settings, such as whether it must be filled in.

Everyone who signs needs at least one Signature or Approve / Decline field: the envelope won’t send until they have one.

If a PDF already has form fields of its own, SignSwifly offers to turn them into fields for your signers when you open it here.

To see the envelope as a signer will, choose Test (▶ on a phone). Nothing is sent and nothing is recorded. Then choose Next document, and on the last one Next: Review.

Step 4: review and send

The last step shows the envelope as it will go out: its documents, who signs, who it’s sent as, the deadline and the reminders, and what happens next for each person. When it’s right, choose Send envelope.

• Everyone on the first step is emailed their signing link straight away. Their links are shown too, in case you need to copy one.
• Everyone after them is emailed when their turn comes: a witness as soon as the person they witness has signed.
• An in-person signer whose turn it is gets a Hand over the device button instead.
• Once it’s sent, the envelope can’t be edited. To change who it went to, see below.
• Each plan sends a number of emails a day to the people on its envelopes: Free 30, Solo 200, Team 1,000 and Scale 5,000, counted from midnight Sydney time. Past it, Send envelope is refused until midnight. See Emails a day.

Where it shows afterwards

• The Dashboard counts what needs your action, what’s out for signature, what completed this month, and your drafts.
• Send & Sign → Out for signature lists envelopes still waiting on someone. Open one to see where each person is up to, and to Send reminder now, Extend deadline, Resend someone their invitation, Change a person’s name or email, or Void envelope to withdraw it. See What the buttons on an envelope do.
• Audit log on the envelope lists every step, such as when it was sent, opened and signed.
• With the standard settings, you’re emailed as each signer finishes and again when everyone has. The envelope then moves to Completed, where you download the signed documents and the certificate of completion: see Download and verify.
• If someone declines, signing stops for everyone and the envelope moves to Declined. You’re emailed, with their reason. To try again, Clone it and send the copy.
• If an invitation bounces, you’re emailed, and reminders to that address pause. See Someone says they didn’t get the email.

What the buttons on an envelope do

Open an envelope’s row under Send & Sign to see its buttons. Which ones it has depends on where the envelope is up to, who is on it and your plan. In the app, hold the pointer over a button for a reminder of what it does.

• Continue draft opens a draft where you left off, to finish it and send it.
• Rename changes a draft’s name, which is what recipients see on their invitation. Once it’s sent, the name stays as it went out.
• Delete draft deletes a draft for good, with its recipients and every document added to it. It can’t be undone: see Drafts.
• Send reminder now reminds whoever’s turn it is straight away, by email, and by text if they get texts (on a single envelope with SMS whose 4 texts are used, only someone reached by text alone). Someone signing in person isn’t reminded, and reminders paused after a bounce stay paused. It can be used once an hour on each envelope, automatic reminders included.
• Extend deadline, on an envelope out for signing that has a deadline, gives signers more time. Those whose turn it is are emailed the new deadline with a new link, and texted if they get texts (on a single envelope with SMS whose 4 texts are used, only someone reached by text alone); someone signing in person isn’t. Links already sent keep working, now until the new deadline. An envelope already marked Expired can’t be extended: Clone it instead.
• Resend, beside someone whose turn it is, sends them their invitation again, with a new link. The links they already have keep working. It can be used once every 10 minutes for each person, and up to 5 times in 24 hours. For someone reached by text alone it’s switched off, since it emails the new link: Send reminder now texts them one.
• Change, beside someone who hasn’t signed yet, corrects their name or email. Any link they were sent stops working, and a new one goes to them when it’s their turn, or at once to a viewer. For someone signing in person, nothing is sent to them: they still sign on your device when it’s their turn.
• Hand over the device, beside someone signing in person whose turn it is, opens their signing page on your device so they can sign with you there. You sign in again afterwards.
• Keep reminding anyway, beside an address whose invitation bounced and whose reminders are paused, lets reminders go to it again. If one bounces too, they pause again. Stop reminding pauses reminders to that address again while the invitation is bounced.
• Void envelope stops an envelope while it’s out for signing. Signers’ links stop working straight away, and it stays in your list, under Voided, as a record. Nobody on it is emailed, so let them know yourself. It can’t be undone.
• Archive files an envelope away from your main lists, under Archived. Nothing is deleted, and one still out for signing carries on. Unarchive puts it back in your main lists.
• Clone starts a new draft with the same documents, people and fields, ready to change and send. Nothing anyone did on the old one comes across.
• Save as template makes a template from the envelope’s documents, people and fields, to send again. Nothing anyone typed comes across. It isn’t offered for an envelope sent to a signing group, and on Free it counts towards your 2 templates. See Templates.
• Audit log opens the list of every step on the envelope, such as when it was sent, opened and signed.
• Under Attached by signers, each file a signer attached has a Download, which downloads it just as the signer attached it, while the envelope’s documents are available. Each download is recorded in the envelope’s audit log. Someone still to sign can take theirs off until they sign. See Files signers attach.
• On a completed envelope, each document’s name downloads its signed copy, Certificate downloads the certificate of completion, and Download all as one PDF downloads every signed document and the certificate together, when the envelope made one. See Download and verify.
• Place legal hold…, for the owner and admins where the workspace has the legal hold add-on to Scale, keeps the envelope’s documents, sealed copies included, from your retention policy until every hold on it is released. Release… takes it off a legal hold placed on it here. You’re asked why first. See Legal hold.

On the Free plan

• You can send 3 envelopes a month. Each one sent counts, even if it’s later declined or voided. Once they’re sent, New envelope is locked until the allowance starts again on the 1st (10 or 11 am Sydney time), unless you have single envelopes to send on; drafts you already have can still be finished, and sent from then. Clone and Use template wait too.
• You can keep up to 3 drafts at a time, archived ones included. With 3, New envelope is locked until you send or delete one.
• An envelope can go to up to 10 people.
• Every envelope uses the standard settings above.
• Nominated signers, the document editor and the built-in PDF editor come with Solo and up, and signing groups with Team and up. On Free you upload a finished Word or PDF file, which is converted and sent in the same way.
• Documents stay available for 6 months after an envelope finishes. See Plans and billing.

Questions

Do the people I send to need SignSwifly?

No. They sign in their web browser from the link in their email, on a phone, tablet or computer. Send them the signer’s guide if they’d like to know what to expect.

Who do signers see as the sender?

It shows in signers’ emails and on the signing page. On Free and Solo, you choose under Settings → Org Profile:

• Just me: signers see your own name.
• An organisation: signers see its name beside yours, and it goes on your invoices.

On Team and Scale, signers see your organisation’s name beside the sender’s. Set it under Settings → Org Profile. Until it’s set, signers see only the sender’s name. A sender profile shows its own name instead. Only the owner or an admin can change these.

Envelopes already sent show the change on their next reminder and on the signing page. Signers also see the phone and address you add there.

Every change to Org Profile is listed under Settings → Team → Activity. If its email or phone changes, we email the owner and the email it replaced, so nobody can change them unnoticed.

Can I send the same document again and again?

Yes: make it a template, with its fields and signers set up once.

Someone says they didn’t get the email.

Open the envelope under Send & Sign. If the email to them came back, it says Not delivered beside them. Check the address, then use Change to correct it: a new link goes to them when it’s their turn. Otherwise, ask them to look in their junk folder. For a signer whose turn it is, Resend sends the invitation again.