Monitoring Your Digital Transactions

When we convert our business transactions that involve paper and signatures into digital processes, we enjoy the benefits of efficiency, cost and time saving, save trees, save on file cabinets and much more. Perhaps the biggest benefit of going digital is the ability to monitor and track the progress of electronic signature transactions at every step in real time, including the ability to identify bottlenecks.

Typical electronic signature workflow (digital transaction) scenario looks something like this: The originator of the transaction initiates the workflow and takes some actions (fills out a form, dates etc.) then identifies who all the people are who need to sign and date the document and in what order. Once every signs it the originator receives an email notification that everyone has signed it and the transaction has completed, or someone has rejected the document.

Now imagine you are running a relay race and each person in the race (workflow) has a stopwatch attached to them. The coach (originator) has the master stopwatch for the entire race (workflow) and also can see the stopwatch reading of the individual runners (signers).

Monitoring the race (workflow) will reveal some very interesting actionable insights.

1. How long it’s taking to complete the transaction
2. How long did each signer took to complete his/her step
3. Which step and/or person is taking a very long time (or the longest time)
4. Which document was rejected and by whom and reasons for rejection

Once you gather this intelligence, you can work with your team to figure out what’s causing the delays. Some common reasons for delays in getting the documents signed electronically are:

1. Not having the right technology and tools
2. Need for education and training
3. Processing payments
4. Waiting for information to confirm something
5. Security risks or privacy concerns
6. Unavailability of the person or their proxy to sign

Armed with a robust electronic signature and digital transaction management tool, imagine how it will transform your business processes – invoices, new hire process, critical consent form collection and processing for thousands of employees (financial/HR compliance), sales contract, partnerships, procurement, legal documents and much more.