Setting up a template for signature

A template set up for e-signature produces documents that already know who signs them and where. When a sender picks one of those documents in the composer, the signature fields are placed and the signer roster is filled in, with nothing left to do but check it and send.

Setting a template up takes four steps, all from the E-sign tab in the Template Editor’s right rail:

1. Turn e-signature on and acknowledge the warning.
2. Define the signer roles.
3. Place the signing fields.
4. Save and publish.

The org itself needs to be set up for e-signature first. See One-time org setup.

Before you start

• Permissions. Turning e-signature on or off for a template needs the Sliick Docs Admin or Sliick Docs Template Author permission set. Anyone else sees the toggle greyed out, with a note saying which permission set to ask for.
• PDF output. Documents are signed as PDFs, so the template must have PDF output turned on. If it is off, the toggle is disabled and the tab says so.
• A draft. On a designed template, work on a draft: the published version is read-only. If you are looking at the live version, choose Create draft first.
• A test record. Fields are placed on a real rendered preview of the document, so choose a test record in the editor’s top bar before opening the field designer.

Step 1: Turn e-signature on

On the E-sign tab, switch on Enable e-signature for this template. A Before you enable panel opens with a warning about the document categories that are excluded from, or restricted for, electronic signing, such as wills, court documents and notarised documents.

Read it, choose Agree, then choose Enable. The tab now shows E-signature enabled, with the name of the person who acknowledged the warning, the warning version, and the date.

That acknowledgment is recorded on the template and copied onto every signature request sent from it. If the packaged warning is later updated, the tab asks you to acknowledge the new version: a change that adds an excluded category must be acknowledged before you carry on, while a wording change shows a banner you can deal with when convenient. To use your organisation’s own wording instead of the packaged warning, see Consent and sender wording.

Disable e-signature turns it off again. The earlier acknowledgment is kept for the record, and turning it back on asks you to read and agree to the warning again.

Step 2: Define the signer roles

Choose Signing fields… to open the field designer. The document preview is on the left and the Signer roles panel is on the right.

A role is a placeholder for a person, such as Buyer, Tenant or Account Manager. Real people are matched to roles when the document is sent, so one template serves every record.

Choose Add role for each person involved, and for each one set:

Setting	What it does
Role name	What the sender sees on the roster, for example Buyer. Up to 80 characters, and each name must be unique on the template.
Type	Signer signs the document. CC (receives completed document) gets a copy of the signed document and does not sign, so a CC role cannot hold fields.
Name from record field	Optional. The field that supplies this person’s name at send time. Choose + to browse fields, including fields on related records such as Contact.Name or Owner.Name. Leave it blank for the sender to type the name.
Email from record field	Optional. The field that supplies this person’s email address, such as Contact.Email or Owner.Email.

The field picker offers only fields that fit the slot: an email or text field for the email, and anything but an ID or lookup for the name. So you pick Contact.Email, never the Contact lookup itself.

When the sender opens the composer, mapped roles arrive with the name and email already filled in from the record. A mapped field that is empty on that record, or that the sender cannot read, simply leaves the slot blank for them to type.

Signing order. Signers sign in order decides how invitations go out. On, each signer is invited after the previous one signs, in the order the roles appear in the list. Off, everyone is invited at once. The sender can still change this before sending.

A template can have up to 10 roles, signers and CC recipients combined. A signer role with no fields is allowed: that person is added to the roster, and the sender places their fields.

Step 3: Place the signing fields

Drag a field type from the palette onto the page, or click a field type and then click the page.

Field	What the signer does
Signature	Signs here.
Initials	Initials here.
Date signed (auto)	Nothing: it is stamped with the date the document is signed, and the signer cannot change it.
Date (signer picks)	Chooses a date, such as a start date or a date of birth. It is not the date they signed.
Name	Nothing: it is filled in with the signer’s name.
Text	Types into a free-text box.
Checkbox	Ticks a box.

New fields go to the active signer, picked from the colour-coded legend, and each signer’s fields share their colour. If there is no signer role yet, dropping the first field creates Signer 1 for it: rename it to match who actually signs.

Select a placed field to give it a Label, which the signer sees, and to set Required, which is on by default. Drag a field to move it, use the corner handle to resize it, and choose × to remove it. A field’s signer cannot be changed once it is placed, so to hand it to someone else, remove it and place it again for them.

Fields follow the document. Each field attaches to the content block beneath it, so when a record produces a longer table or an extra paragraph, the field moves with its block instead of landing on the wrong line. Two placements need care:

• Inside a repeating block is not allowed, because the block renders once per child record and the field would have no single home. Place it outside the repeat. Publishing is refused until you do.
• Inside a conditional block is allowed, in either the main branch or the else branch. When a branch is left out for a record, so are its fields. A signer role whose fields are all left out is dropped from that record’s roster.

If you delete a block that has signing fields on it, the editor warns you first. Delete it anyway and the next time you open Signing fields… you are told which fields lost their place, by signer and field type (for example Buyer · Date (signer picks)), so you can place them again.

Removing a role, or changing it to CC, removes its fields too. You are asked to confirm first and told how many fields will go.

Amount and dropdown fields are not available on a template. A sender can still add them by hand in the composer before sending.

Step 4: Save and publish

Choose Save in the field designer. Your roles and fields are saved to the template’s draft, not to what senders use yet. If you choose Close with unsaved changes, you are asked before they are discarded.

Saving never fails on a problem with the setup. Instead it lists Warnings, such as a duplicate role name or a field whose block has since been deleted, and those warnings must be resolved before the template can be published.

Then proof and publish the template as you would any other change. See Proof, publish and versions. Publishing is what makes the signature setup live: documents generated from that release onwards carry their field placement with them.

Creating a new draft from a published template carries its signature setup forward, so you only ever edit what has changed.

What senders see

In the composer, a document generated from the template opens with its fields placed and its roles on the roster, filled in from the record wherever you mapped a field. The document picked is, byte for byte, the document that gets signed. The template tab in the composer also offers the template, with a hint saying whether its fields will be placed automatically. See Sending a document.

Each document remembers the release it was generated from, so an older document keeps the field placement it was generated with, even after you change the template.

Documents generated before you published carry no placement and open for manual placement. Regenerate the document to get automatic placement. If a document’s placement no longer matches its release, for example because it predates a change to the signature setup, the composer places nothing and says so, rather than placing a partial set of fields.

Word-file templates

A template uploaded as a Word file has the same E-sign tab and the same enable step, but no field designer. Instead, write signature tags into the Word document where each field belongs, for example {{@Signature:Buyer:1:Signature}}. They are read from the generated PDF when it is sent. A Word template without tags still sends: the sender places the fields by hand. See Signature tags for the format.

Troubleshooting template setup

What you see	What to do
The toggle is disabled, with a note about PDF output	Turn on PDF output for the template. On a Word template, proof and publish a draft first so PDF output becomes available.
The toggle is greyed out, with a note about permission sets	You need the Sliick Docs Admin or Sliick Docs Template Author permission set. Ask your Salesforce admin.
Signing fields… is disabled	Choose a test record in the editor’s top bar. On a designed template, also make sure you are on a draft.
The designer asks you to resolve validation issues	Fix the issues the editor lists for the document itself, save, and open the designer again.
Recent edits to the document do not appear in the designer	The designer renders the saved draft. Save the template, then reopen it.
Publish says a field’s block no longer exists	The block that field sat on was deleted. The message names the field by signer and type. Open Signing fields…, place it again, and save.
Save warns about a role’s name or email source	The field chosen cannot supply a name or an email address, for example a lookup. Pick the field itself, such as Contact.Email.
Publish says a field is anchored inside a repeating block	Move the field outside the repeat and save.
Senders have to place every field by hand	Check the template is published since you placed the fields, and regenerate the document.
The sender is told none of the record’s templates is set up for e-signature	E-signature is not enabled on the template, or its published release does not produce a PDF.

For problems after a request has been sent, see Troubleshooting.