This article focuses on workflows. You can start to create and monitor all your workflows from the Workflow Hub.

This article explains how to have documents signed electronically by one or more employees.

To request document signatures, the requesting employee must have the necessary access rights. Access rights for employee documents can be assigned via employee roles. At a minimum, viewing rights for the Public profile and editing rights for the corresponding document category within Documents are required.

Requesting signatures from individual employees

If you only need one employee to sign a document, you can request their electronic signature under Documents in the employee profile where the document will be filed. 

Ensure that you have uploaded the document that you need to have signed before you request their electronic signature. For more information on uploading individual documents, read our article Uploading Individual Documents.

To request an electronic signature from an individual employee, follow these steps:

1. 1. Go to Employees > Employee List. Click on the name of the relevant employee to navigate to the employee profile where the document will be filed and click on the Documents tab.
   2. Click on Request signature.
   3. Select the signatory for the document. The signatory can be the respective employee, or you can request a signature from a different employee within your company. 
   4. Select the language for the email request to the employee. If you wish, you can add a custom email message.

The employee receives an email asking them to sign the document, and the status of the signature request automatically changes to Pending. As the document does not need to include a signature placeholder, the employee can add the signature anywhere in the document. 

If you also wish to incorporate the location and date of signing into the document, use a previously created document template with location and date placeholders. To find out more about the signature process, read the article Signing a Document With an Electronic Signature.

Once the document has been signed, the document status is updated to Signed and the document is stored in the relevant document category in the employee profile. You can download it from there, including the signature. An email copy is also automatically sent to the person who has signed the document. All documents for which electronic signatures are requested are converted to PDF format when they are signed, even if they were uploaded as, for example, DOC files.

Requesting signatures from multiple parties

If an employee document needs to be signed by several people (for example, new contracts when employees are promoted or their contracts change), create a document template in your Personio account. This document template must contain signature placeholders to define where the signatures need to be placed and in which sequence they will be requested. You can also include placeholders for the location and the date of signing. 

To find out how to create document templates with placeholders for signatures (as well as placeholders for the location and date of digital signatures), read our article Create a Document Template with Signature Placeholders.

To request signatures from multiple persons, follow these steps:

1. Go to Employees > Employee List. Click on the name of the relevant employee to navigate to the employee profile and click on the Documents tab.
2. To create the document you wish to have signed, click on Create new. Ensure that you select a template that includes signature placeholders.
3. Add any missing information to the template as required and click on Create new.
4. Under Documents > Signature, click on Request signature.
5. Select the persons who need to sign the document at the placeholders defined in the template. You must assign signatories manually to the signature placeholders. This is not done automatically by naming (adding designations to) the placeholders. Designations merely serve as indicators of who needs to sign a document and where. Edit the sequence in which you want signatories to sign the document by clicking on Settings > People > Documents. This sequence will be applied to all signatures you request for the particular template.
   ⚠️  One of the signatures must always come from the employee in whose employee profile the document was created.
6. Select the language for the email request sent to the signatories. The language can only be selected universally for all intended signatories.
7. If you wish, you can add a custom Email message. This message will be sent to all intended signatories.
8. Click on Send document. The recipients will receive their requests to sign the document digitally in the sequence you have defined. The status in the Signature column will be updated to Pending. Hover the cursor over the status to see additional information.
9. As soon as all parties have signed the document, the document status is updated to Signed and you can download the document with all of the signatures. An email copy is sent to the persons who have signed the document. 

Note:

The employee who requests a signature will not be notified about its status unless they are also a signatory.

Employees with the corresponding access rights will be able to check the status of a signature through the Documents tab in the employee profile.

However, only admins will be able to check the status of all open signatures through both the Workflow Hub and the Signatures Overview page.

Signatures Webinar (German only)