System terminologies
The 'System terminologies' page comprises of a comprehensive list of essential terms and definitions related to system functions, components, and processes. Understanding these terminologies will help you navigate SigningHub more effectively and provide insight into the key concepts that form its core. Each term is defined to give you a clearer understanding of its role and importance within the system, ensuring you have the foundational knowledge needed to interact with and manage the system's features confidently.
System nomenclature
Terminologies | Description |
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SigningHub Cloud | SigningHub Cloud is the hosted cloud service for document approval workflows, advanced digital signatures and document status tracking. It allows "Individual" and "Enterprise" level subscriptions against the predefined Service Plans. |
SigningHub Enterprise (on-premises) | SigningHub Enterprise (on-premises) is a license-based privately hosted cloud service for document approval workflows, advanced digital signatures and document status tracking. In addition to the public cloud features, it offers advanced product-level configurations where administrators can manage accounts, create custom Service Plans, configure desired service connectors, signing methods, and billing details, integrate and embed with 3rd party business applications and tune many more system provisions through an Admin console. In short, giving you complete control over customizing the SigningHub web interface for large enterprises. |
Guest User | A user who does not own a SigningHub account (i.e. not registered in SigningHub) is called a guest user. They can still be added to a workflow for e-signature. However, for a digital signature, a guest user will have to register themself. |
Individual Account | A SigningHub subscription acquired for an individual entity is called an individual account. Individual subscriptions have limited features as compared to enterprise subscriptions. |
Enterprise Account | A SigningHub subscription acquired for any group of people (team) or organization is called an enterprise account. An enterprise account features an enriched subscription and is comprised of an enterprise owner, enterprise admin(s) and enterprise user(s). |
Certified Signature | Signatures that certify a PDF are called certified signatures. A certified signature attests to the contents of the document and allows the signer to specify the types of changes allowed for the document to remain certified. |
Certified Document | A certified document has a certified signature applied by their Document Owners when the document is ready for use. The document owner specifies what changes are allowed for the recipients, from the following permitted modifications:
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Unassigned Form Field | A PDF form field that has not been assigned to any recipient in a workflow, is called an unassigned form field. When the workflow is initiated with unassigned form fields, then any configured recipient (in a workflow) can fill these fields upon their turn. |
Unassigned Signature Field | A signature field in a PDF document that has not been assigned to any signer is called an unassigned signature field. During workflow configuration, such fields are assigned to signers before initiating the workflow. |
Payment Type | SigningHub supports two types of payment:
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Template | The workflow settings configured on the documents are called templates. The templates are created to reuse the same configurations on other documents as well. Based on your Service Plan, a template may save the following information:
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Workflow | Workflow in SigningHub is a document approval process (i.e. signing, reviewing, updating) that is configured by the Document Owner. It is also called document preparation. A workflow can be of three types:
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Local-Side Signing | In Local (client-side) signing, the signing keys (crypto keys required for digital signature creation) are held in a local keystore in smartcards or in USB-crypto tokens. For this, the Go>Sign Desktop application is required on the system along with the correct drivers of the installed devices. Download Go>Sign Desktop. |
Mobile Signing | In Mobile signing, the signing keys (crypto keys required for digital signature creation) are held on the user's mobile device. For this, a supported mobile signing app is required to use this feature. |
Server-Side Signing | In Server-Side signing, the signing keys (crypto keys required for digital signature creation) are held at the server end. These keys can be used through any modern browser of Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Andriod or other devices/ tablets for signing at the server end. For this, an SMS OTP authentication can also be enabled, by which the authentication password will be directly sent to your mobile device at the time of signing for confirmation. |
One-Time Password (OTP) Security | OTP is a security system that requires a new password every time a user authenticates themselves, thus protecting against an intruder replaying an intercepted password. If this option is enabled in the user billing plan then after clicking on the "Sign" button, an OTP will be sent to the user's mobile number that was provided at the time of registration. |
Group Signing | The group signing feature enables you to send a document to a group of users (e.g. Sales, HR etc) and allows any group member to sign the document on behalf of all the group members. In such a scenario, when a group member opens the document, it (the document) becomes locked (read-only) for other group members, hence allowing only one signer (who opened it first) to sign the document. |
Group Approving | The group approving feature enables you to send a document to a group of users (e.g. Sales, HR etc) and allows any group member to review/ approve the document on behalf of all the group members. In such a scenario, when a group member opens the document, it (the document) becomes locked (read-only) for other group members, hence allowing only one reviewer (who opened it first) to review the document. |
Group Updating | The group updating feature enables you to send a document to a group of users (e.g. Sales, HR etc) and allows any group member to edit/ update the document on behalf of all the group members. In such a scenario, when a group member opens the document, it (the document) becomes locked (read-only) for other group members, hence allowing only one editor (who opened it first) to update the document. |
Initials Fields | Initials fields are the short form of signature and are associated with the recipients (i.e. signers, reviewers, meeting hosts, and editors). In this case, the digital signatures are not embedded. Initial fields can be filled in by hand drawing, text filling or image uploading (the same as when signing a field), and they are added as annotations in the PDF. However, the initials feature is package-based and is available for configuration, if it is included in your Service Plan. |
In-Person Fields | In-person signatures are similar to the initials fields. They are associated with the signers and meeting hosts only and are usually done on behalf of someone else. In-person signatures are added as annotations in the PDF. They can also be used as witness digital signatures if they are generated by using a witness certificate which is a public signing certificate available on the server for digital signing. The recipients who are configured as in-person signers don't necessarily need to be registered users of SigningHub. However, the in-person signature feature is package-based and is available for configuration, if it is included in your Service Plan. |
Workflow history | The complete list of activities performed on a shared document with respective details, is maintained in workflow history. The "Workflow History" option is available to the respective Document Owner only. |
Attachments | Any type of file that is added to the document as an annotation is called an attachment. The "Attachment" option is available to the respective Document Owner only. Once added, the attachments are available to all the recipients who can view and download them. |
Legal Notice | A legal notice is comprised of certain terms and conditions that must be agreed upon by the (configured) recipients before signing/ reviewing/ updating a workflow document. |
Password Policy | Password policy binds the enterprise users to use the same combination of characters for their account password, as defined by the enterprise admin, i.e. password length (total number of characters), number of alphanumeric characters in the password, and number of special characters in the password. |
"Send" Button | Whenever a document is shared, the system performs the following operations:
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"Recall" Option | Whenever a document is recalled, the system performs the following operations:
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Tight Integration | In the tight mode of integration, the users interact with your web application and present the document or form as an iFrame/widget within your application’s webpage. There is no website redirection and the user’s browser address bar doesn’t change. Your users can then view the document, fill in form fields and create their digital signature while staying on your site. Tight integration is suitable for ECM, CRM or ERP web applications or portals, where a user already logs in to interact in a defined way. |
Loose Integration | The loose mode of integration is where your business application initiates the sign-off workflow, but the end users actually interact with SigningHub when it is their turn to sign the document, instead of logging on to your business application. This loose mode of integration is useful in situations where external users are required to sign documents and they do not have access to your internal business application web interfaces. For more details, contact support@signinghub.com |
Document Owner | Any SigningHub user who initiates a document workflow is called a document owner. In addition to performing other activities, a document owner can exclusively view the "Workflow History" and "Attachments" options in their documents. |
Recipient | The actual user who has been sent a document for collaboration (signing, reviewing, updating, or hosting) by the Document Owner, is called a recipient. A recipient may or may not be a registered SigningHub user at the time of document sending. However, to collaborate with the document workflow, s/he will have to register with SigningHub. Based on your document approval requirements, a recipient can be assigned any of the 5 different roles, i.e.:
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Placeholder | A recipient that is added as a part of the approval workflow, but unknown at the time of the document preparation phase, is called a placeholder. There can be multiple placeholders in a workflow. In such cases, a document owner can define a title (i.e. Manager, Admin, etc.) for each placeholder while preparing their document workflow, which can later be updated with the actual recipient by the immediate previous recipient or by the document owner himself during workflow execution. Just like a recipient, a placeholder can be assigned any of the 5 different roles in a workflow, i.e.:
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Shared Folder Owner | An enterprise user who creates a shared folder in their SigningHub account to delegate their signing authority to a group of collaborators is called a shared folder owner, of that particular folder. However to be a shared folder owner, an enterprise user must be allowed to manage shared folders in their enterprise role. The enterprise user may then:
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When the document owner shares a document package having multiple signature fields assigned to the same recipient, only the last dropped signature field on the last page will be retained as a Digital Signature field and the rest of the signature fields will be converted to the lowest level of assurance that is Electronic Signature (i.e. an annotation). Learn more about it here.
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