As businesses increasingly adopt digital signature solutions to streamline their document signing processes, choosing the right integration method is crucial for a seamless and efficient workflow. When considering automating your digital signature workflow, it’s essential to understand the various options available and how they can best serve your organization’s needs.
Preparing Documents for Digital Signing
Properly preparing your documents for digital signing is essential for a smooth signing process. Your documents should be in a compatible format, such as PDF, and have clearly defined signature fields. Additionally, consider any legal requirements or compliance standards that apply to your industry.
eSigner: The Trusted Choice for Digital Signature Integration
When it comes to choosing a digital signature provider, SSL.com stands out as the only certificate authority that offers both AATL (Adobe Approved Trust List) trusted document signing certificates and eSigner, a complete cloud signing service that provides digital signature operations through an API. This comprehensive solution provides the convenience of having both the certificate and cloud signing in the same product suite and support representation. This also ensures that your digital signatures are legally binding, widely recognized across various platforms, and are applied with your identity, not that of the cloud signing service itself.
Integration Options with eSigner
Direct API Integration
With this option, you can integrate eSigner’s API directly into your application. This involves computing the hash, applying timestamps, and embedding revocation lookups. The API provides endpoints for document uploading, signer authentication, signature placement, and retrieving signed documents. While this option provides the most control and customization, it also requires more technical expertise and development resources.
Java Command-Line Utility (DocSignTool)
eSigner provides a Java-based command-line utility called DocSignTool, which simplifies the integration process. This utility handles the necessary hash computations, timestamping, certificate revocation lookup embedding, and interactions with eSigner’s API, making it easier to integrate digital signing capabilities into your existing workflows.
Document Signing Gateway
The Document Signing Gateway is eSigner’s latest offering, designed to streamline the integration process further. This container-based Docker image, on-premises solution acts as an intermediary between your application and eSigner’s API. It handles all the complex tasks, such as hash computation, timestamping, and revocation checks, allowing you to focus on your core business logic.
eSigner Cloud Key Adapter (CKA)
The eSigner Cloud Key Adapter (CKA) is a Windows-compatible application designed to integrate smoothly with popular platforms like Adobe Acrobat Reader and Microsoft 365 applications, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Acting as a virtual USB token, the CKA automatically loads certificates into the Windows certificate store, making it easy for users to select their SSL.com certificate in Adobe Acrobat Reader or Microsoft 365 and sign documents securely and swiftly.
eSigner CKA provides a convenient alternative to physical USB tokens, storing document signing certificates in SSL.com’s cloud system. For small teams and organizations, it offers an affordable, easy-to-use, and efficient solution for digitally signing electronic documents.
Check out the following eSigner CKA document signing guides:
Add Digital Signatures to Microsoft Office 365 Documents using eSigner CKA
Digitally Sign a PDF on Adobe Acrobat Reader using eSigner CKA
Adobe Acrobat Sign
Adobe Acrobat Sign allows users to send PDFs and request digital signatures from multiple recipients. This platform is ideal for large companies and organizations, offering seamless integration with SSL.com’s eSigner CSC API to automate document signing workflows. It enables both internal and external parties to apply digital signatures to PDF files.
esigner.com
eSigner.com is SSL.com’s cutting-edge browser-based application powered by the eSigner CSC API, which enables users worldwide to protect their electronic documents with secure, cloud-based digital signatures. This app simplifies the process of setting up automated document signing workflows, allowing multiple individuals to sign digital documents. Organizations can use this feature to have both team members and external contacts apply verified digital signatures to important documents such as invoices, agreements, or work statements.
Advantages of the Document Signing Gateway
While all three integration options have their merits, the Document Signing Gateway offers several advantages over the others:
- Simplified Integration: The Document Signing Gateway abstracts away the complexities of the API, making it easier and faster to integrate digital signing capabilities into your application.
- Reduced Development Effort: By handling the low-level tasks, the Document Signing Gateway minimizes the development effort required on your end, allowing your team to focus on other critical aspects of your application.
- Enhanced Security: The Document Signing Gateway operates on-premises, giving you complete control over your sensitive data and ensuring that it never leaves your secure environment.
Leveraging Document Signing Gateway APIs
In addition to complete SaaS-based solutions, organizations can implement document signing capabilities through gateway APIs that integrate with existing infrastructure. Both have similar functionality and are installed on the customer’s premises. To ensure privacy, both send a hash over the network rather than the full PDF document.
However, there are key advantages of using the Gateway App over DocSignTool:
- Ease of Integration: DocSignTool is a command-line application that can be difficult to integrate, requiring embedding into the customer’s application. In contrast, the Gateway App is API-based, allowing easy integration through simple API calls from applications in any programming language (Python, Java, .NET, Node.js, etc.).
- Deployment Simplicity: The Gateway App is installed as a docker image, making deployment straightforward compared to DocSignTool.
- Developer-Friendly: From a developer’s perspective, the Gateway App is easier to work with due to its API-based model.
For a step-by-step guide on using DocSignTool for document signing, refer to the Guide. For a more extensive guide on Document Signing Gateway, please refer to the .
By leveraging well-designed APIs like the Gateway App, companies can flexibly add robust document eSignature capabilities to their applications and systems. The gateways handle cryptographic complexity and scalability requirements.
Testing Your Integration with Sandbox Environment
To ensure a smooth rollout of your digital signature integration, eSigner provides a sandbox environment for testing. This allows you to thoroughly test your implementation, including the signing process and eSealing functionality, in a safe and controlled setting before deploying it to production. For detailed instructions on utilizing the eSigner sandbox environment, please refer to the following testing guide: .
Conclusion
Choosing the right digital signature integration method is essential for optimizing your document signing workflow. With eSigner’s trusted certificates, comprehensive API, and the Document Signing Gateway, you can streamline your integration process and enjoy a secure, efficient, and legally compliant digital signature solution.