Center for REALTOR® Technology Web Log

(reposted from CRT newletter)

The “cloud”: everyone has been talking about it lately. The simple truth is that the Cloud is as old as the Internet. In fact, it is the Internet. It started with the kinds of services offered online, email, calendaring, contact management and banking. And as the technology improves, the services the cloud is capable of offering only increases.

I’m a strong believer that cloud services are going to be the primary driver behind increases in Internet usage. Every day it seems like there are more and more great services that yesterday were too cumbersome, too impractical or too costly to offer. With the advancements in the processor power and speed of the Internet, hardware is now moving into the cloud. This is known as Cloud Computing, where your servers, for example, actually exist virtualization, accessible online, but actually existing miles away, in some unknown, never-visited data center in the middle of nowhere.

As we move forward with this trend, we will see more of our business workflow move onto the Internet as well. One such technology that is moving ahead is online document signing (often referred to as digital signature). One company pioneering this vertical is DocuSign.

Some Background:
In November 2009, NAR formed a strategic partnership with DocuSign, an award-winning eSignature vendor.

I can write all about the Digital Signature process, about how amazing and effective it is, and how it optimizes workflow. And there is a lot of information about it online that you should definitely check out DocuSign Electronic Signature Services. However, what I want to discuss how the services of DocuSign can be extended just a little bit further– as a Secure Online File Repository, which would allow DocuSign to be used as a virtual file cabinet.

Here’s what that means. With their service you can upload documents, which can then (to a degree) be edited before being either ‘completed’ (i.e. sealed away) or passed through a signing process, then sealed. During the life of the document, they can be put into envelopes, and those envelopes placed into folders. For example:

Folder ‘Smith’
Envelope ‘Disclosures’
– Disclosure Doc A
– Disclosure Doc B
Envelope ‘Contract’
– Contract Stuff A
– Contract Stuff B

The key thing here is that these documents don’t necessarily need to go through a signing process to be uploaded and stored. And because of DocuSign’s intrinsic security, the entire document lifecycle is tracked (upload, view, edit, and sign). Therefore, you have complete visibility into the document lifecycle—you can see who has received the documents and who hasn’t yet signed. You can even use DocuSign’s automated reminder feature to automatically follow up with clients who have received your documents via DocuSign but haven’t signed them.

The standard account comes with 40 envelopes per month, which can be placed into any folder structure you wish. For example, if you use 12 one month, those are archived indefinitely; the next month you start fresh with another 40 envelopes. So in theory, after 12 months of using all 40 envelopes/month, you would have 480 envelopes stored in the folders in your file cabinet.

If you recall, inside the folders are envelopes. Those can be shared with other subscribers to the service via the CC feature. Accounts with administrator and user-permission levels may also be able to share based on permissions set by the account administrators—check with your administrator and DocuSign account executive to be sure.

And, for the cautious, DocuSign ensures that all documents are always downloadable by both signers and senders. To meet some legal requirements, some documents need to be maintained by DocuSign (with the audit logs and certificate of completion) for varying levels of time, depending on compliance requirements.

This is all very exciting for me—and I’d love to see DocuSign push a little further into the Document Repository arena. But I think they have a great core built around their secure eSignature process. Check them out!

Finally, there is also an electronic signature API, which I understand can be used for some pretty powerful things.
But I leave you explore that….

Till next time – Chris