Signing sequences explained

So you’re creating your envelope but are a bit confused about which party will receive it first to sign, or maybe you want everyone to receive it at once – well you’ve come to the right place!

This guide will explain the two different signing sequences on Signable; All-at-once signing and One-at-a-time signing. We’ll go through examples of when one might be more useful than the other, and where to find them on your envelope.

What is One-at-a-time signing?

This signing sequence can be used if you’d like your envelope to be signed in a particular order. Whoever is listed as Party 1 will receive the envelope to sign first. Once signed, it will then be sent automatically to Party 2, and so on. All parties will receive a signed copy of the envelope once all signers have completed it.

This option is useful if you, as the sender, would like to sign the envelope first before it goes to your signers. Or alternatively, if you needed someone to be the last to sign off on the envelope.

What is All-at-once signing?

This signing sequence can be used if your envelope does not require signing in a particular order.

Whoever is listed as Party 1 or 2 will have no effect on the signing process – each party will receive it at the same time to sign. Similar to One-at-a-time signing, everyone will receive their signed copy after all parties have completed it.

This option would be very useful for envelopes containing tenancy agreements, where there can be quite a few parties on it needing to sign. If one person was delayed and could not sign immediately, it wouldn’t prevent the envelope from being signed by everyone else, as would be the case in One-at-a-time signing. However, as I mentioned above, the envelope will not be complete until all parties have signed.

Where do I choose my Signing Sequence?

You'll find the area where you set your signing sequence on the final page of envelope creation, also known as the 'Summary & Send' page, here you'll see a summary of every step of the envelope, allowing you to edit each element of the envelope that's already been set, crucially - you'll also see a line dedicated to 'signing sequence'.

As you can see in the above example, the signing sequence is currently set to 'All-at-Once', if you click 'Edit' on the right hand side, you will be presented with the alternative options for signing sequences:

If you accidentally choose the incorrect sequence, don’t worry – you can edit this right up until the point of sending.

A little side note – for any customers who have created an account after June 2023, All-at-once signing will be selected as default and can be amended in Company Settings. For our existing customers, All-at-once signing will have to be chosen to set it as default in Company Settings. Remember, the signing sequence can be changed when creating your envelope too!

Setting the signing sequence via the public API

Both signing sequences are available to users of our API as well.

Please click here for more information and to view our API documentation.

And there you have it, that’s all you need to know about Signing Sequences!

If you’d like a step by step guide to sending an envelope, please click here.