This article explains how to request electronic signatures for documents stored in Personio. The requesting employee must have the necessary access rights, and can request one or multiple signatures. See our article on the Automations area for more information about Workflows, or how to sign a document with an electronic signature. 

How we request e-signatures and their legality

You can request electronic signatures for all documents in Personio, like employment contracts, supplementary agreements, declarations of consent, etc. It's important to ensure the Legal Validity of Electronic Signatures that you request.

We work together with SignaturIT, and use their Advanced signature type. If you have any questions regarding the legal security and effect of electronic signatures, please contact a lawyer or legal advisor of your choice. Personio merely provides the technical prerequisites and the tool for using signatures, and assumes no liability.

Pre-requisites

To request signatures, ensure the following:

• Your organization has the required plan.
  
  
• Your organization has selected the Signaturit Solutions checkbox in the Subcontractors section of the Data Protection Information tab. 
  
  
• The user requesting signatures has the following access rights assigned via Settings > People > Employee Roles:
  • viewing rights for the Public profile under People data > Personal data
  • editing rights for the corresponding document category under People data > Documents

• The user whose signature is being requested has: 
  • an "Active" or "Onboarding" status in Personio.
  • a valid email address saved in their Personio profile, this includes candidates who need to sign contracts. 

Request a signature

Before requesting a signature, ensure the document has been added to the relevant employee profile. If the document already exists in the profile, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Employee Profile > Documents tab.
2. Find the existing document in the list.
3. Hover over the document name, and click the Request signature icon to the right of the signature status. 
4. In the request signature window that appears, select the document signer, email language, and optionally enter an email message. 
   • Automated email reminders for the request are enabled by default. To disable automatic reminders, deselect the Send automatic reminders for pending signatures checkbox. If reminders are enabled, you can set the frequency of when they're sent. Emails continue until the signature status changes to signed or expired. 
5. Request the signature.

You'll return to the employee's document list, and the requested employee(s) receive an email asking them to sign a document. The status in the Signature column updates to "Pending", and updates to "Signed" once complete.

See the Monitor and manage signature requests article to check the status of a request, or send an email reminder manually.

Request signatures from multiple people on a single document

If you want more than one person to sign a document, ensure the following:

• the document has been added to the relevant employee's profile
• the document was created with a document template that contains multiple signature placeholders

To request signatures from multiple people on a document, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Employee Profile > Documents.
2. Find the existing document in the list.
3. Hover over the document name, and click the Request signature icon to the right of the signature status. 
4. In the request signature window that appears, select the signer associated with each placeholder. Common placeholders include Employee, Supervisor, and HR Manager. 
5. Select the email language, and optionally enter an email message.
   • Automated email reminders for the request are enabled by default. To disable automatic reminders, deselect the Send automatic reminders for pending signatures checkbox. If reminders are enabled, you can set the frequency of when they're sent. Emails continue until the signature status changes to signed or expired. 
6. Request the signature.

You'll return to the employee's document list, and the requested employee(s) receive an email asking them to sign a document. The status in the signature column updates to "Pending" once requested, and changes to "Signed" once complete.

Signature request emails send in the order specified in the original document template's settings. To rearrange the order, see Create a Document Template with Signature Placeholders.

See the Monitor and manage signature requests article to check the status of a request, or send a manual reminder.

Check the status of a signature request

• Create a custom workflow using the "An employee's document signature status is updated" trigger to notify employees about changes in a signature's status.
• Admins can check the status of all open signatures through the Automations area and the Signatures Overview page. 
• If a document hasn't been signed, Admins can check its status and send the signee(s) a manual reminder email through the Signatures Overview page.
• Employees with the necessary access rights can check the status of a signature and send a signature reminder through the relevant Employee Profile.

See the Monitor and manage signature requests article.

Troubleshooting

Signatory didn't receive the request email

If a user did not receive the signature request email, check the following points.

More information

• Monitor and manage signature requests
• How many signatures are included in my plan?
• Legal validity of electronic signatures
• Sign a document with an electronic signature