If your unit does not already have a process for secure retention of the documents in your workflow, DocuSign can be configured to forward a sender's completed documents and certificates-of-completion to a UTBox folder.
There are two ways this can be configured, either forwarding separate files for completed documents & certificate to a departmental folder, or forwarding combined documents + certificate to a specifically configured folder based on the EID of the sender and the use of a custom template feature. Each method has trade-offs to consider, please see below and contact us at rms@austin.utexas.edu with questions.
Setting up a Departmental Folder
To set up a folder that can be named as the unit wants, DocuSign can be configured to forward any sender's completed documents and related certificates to that folder as separate PDFs. This option is required for senders that are not using EID-based email addresses (persons (faculty/staff), or custom EID users requiring advanced Technical Support Contacts (TSC) configuration). An example of a non-EID-based email address is rms@austin.utexas.edu, the account that Records and Information Management Services uses.
Because individual user Box accounts have a 2-terabyte size limit, it is recommended that a Departmental UTBox folder is created, instead of relying on individual user Box accounts.
- Create a Departmental BOX Folder for forwarding DocuSign documents into. Best practice is a group box folder so that there are no storage limitations.
- This folder should have a name that indicates your department and DocuSign (ex. RMS DocuSign). Naming the folder just "DocuSign" will produce confusion, as the Service Desk administrators see all folders shared with the DocuSign admin account.
- Invite the DocuSign Administrator as an Editor to this folder. Note: This step can be accomplished when discussing final configuration with rms@austin.utexas.edu.
- Email rms@austin.utexas.edu and ask for documents for the specific sender(s) to be forwarded to this box. Please indicate
- the name of the BOX folder,
- the names and EIDs (or email addresses) of senders who should forward to this folder,
- and whether the DocuSign Administrator has been invited.
Note: All documents that are forwarded this way will be separate PDFs. Multiple people can forward to this folder, but each individual's documents would then need to be sorted and often are renamed to better indicate something about the specific document. When such a folder is shared with multiple senders, files are typically moved elsewhere for better records retention to facilitate search and retrieval.
Setting up an individual EID-based Folder
If the sender needs forwarding to Box of completed files to result in a single combined PDF that includes the certificate of completion, certain configuration steps must be completed in advance and a custom template feature must be used to begin sending for each such document. The sender must have an EID-based email address in DocuSign. Persons (faculty/staff) can log into DocuSign and their EID-based email address will automatically be used as their email address in the system. Specially generated EIDs can be created by Technical Support Contacts (TSC). Please contact rms@austin.utexas.edu to discuss EIDs that are not associated with a person and what is required to set up and use such with DocuSign.
For senders who are persons, steps are required to prepare for forwarding combined documents to Box:
- Create a folder named exactly your EID (ex. sampull1234), at the top of your Box folder structure
- The folder name must exactly match your EID and cannot be renamed - if it is later renamed, forwarding will break.
- Email rms@austin.utexas.edu and ask for documents to be forwarded to this box. Please indicate the name of the BOX folder (ie, the user's EID) as well as whether the DocuSign Administrator has been invited.
- Once the set up is complete, this folder CANNOT be moved or renamed.
- Best practice is to consider the folder to be a loading zone for your documents, which can be shared with members of your team as suits.
- Rename and move files to match your own record retention plan.
- Sending new documents that forward combined documents to Box requires starting from the custom template that includes the combination feature.
- Similarly, creating new templates that incorporate the Box combination feature requires copying a previously customized template or the custom template that has that feature enabled.
- If this is a new feature for your unit, please work with rms@austin.utexas.edu to step through setup and initial use and testing of the custom template.
Note: DocuSign limitation – DocuSign does not have built-in logic for determining whether a completed document should be sent to Folder A instead of Folder B. Therefore, configuring a user to forward both to Box folders A and Box folder B will mean that a copy of the document is forwarded to Folder A and a copy of the same document is forwarded to Folder B.
Advanced Note: Units with advanced IT support (their TSC) can create non-person EID accounts that have all the features of a person with an EID, including a box account, an EID email address that successfully forwards to an email address (forwarding set up by the TSC) which is monitored by the team of people related to that account. Such non-person EID accounts can then be set up and tested in DocuSign. This configuration is useful for PowerForms and select use cases where users who send documents are configured to transfer sent documents to the non-person EID account's sent folder immediately upon sending – those users (people) will then never send as themselves, they functionally send as the non-person EID account.