How to Collect Signatures using Public Form

A “Public Form” allows the sender to get signatures from the public or unspecified signers in various scenarios. Usually, a template is required in order to create a public form, and you may share the form link with prospective customers, suppliers, and employees. 

Public form is also useful when there are a mix of signers, including unspecified and specified one, involved in the signing process. You can complete the process remotely or in-person on the same device.

Example: The HR manager creates a public form using the employee leave form. As part of the offboarding process, the employee fills in the leave form via the public form link, the HR manager will receive the signature request from DottedSign to approve the document. Public form can be used in both internal and external signing scenarios. Get started by following the steps below.

Roles in Public Form

• Form owner: The role that creates the form template and owns every task in a public form.
• Form signer: The unspecified signer that signs the form via the form’s link.
• Signer: The specified signer that receives the auto-reminder signing letter to sign the task after the form signer completed.

Form owner’s Perspective: How to Create a New Public Form

1. Go to “Settings”.
2. Click “Public Form” from the sidebar of the settings page.
3. Click “+ Create New” to create a new public form.
4. Click “Import Template”. Select the template that you want to create a public form with, and click“Continue”. If this is your first time using a template, here’s a step-by-step tutorial (Link). Please note that you’d need to set a signing order to the template before importing it to public form.          
5. Name your public form title, the instructions to your signers, and the roles that may involve.
6. You may also change the signer’s current role, and select the requirements of contacts information by clicking the More icon “...”. More details as below: 
   • Under the ‘Current Role’, a ‘Signer’ means the signer whom you will assign to whereas ‘Form Signer’ is for those unspecified signers.
   • Under the ‘Requirements of Contact Information’, the ‘Name’ field is required whereas ‘Email’ is optional. If the Email box is ticked, all signers will receive a copy of the signed document.
   • Once completed, hit ‘Confirm’ and ‘Continue’.
7. Before releasing the Public Form, please confirm how you’d like to unpublish the public form. You have the options below:
   • Unpublished manually: This is the default option where you can unpublish the public form manually.
   • Auto-unpublish when deadline met: When the deadline is met, the form will be unpublished automatically.
   • Auto-unpublish when certain amount of responses received: When the number of responses received has achieved the set amount, the form will be unpublished automatically.
8. Once set, click “Create & Publish” to release your public form. You will find the new public form listed in the dashboard.

Form owner’s Perspective: How to Share a Public Form

1. Select your public form and click on More ‘...’ .
2. Click “Get link”, then copy the link to share your public form with your stakeholders or prospects.

Form Signer’s Perspective: How to Sign a Public Form

Upon receiving the link to sign a public form, here are the steps to follow in order to complete your signature fields.

1. When you access the document via a public form link, you will be asked firstly to agree to sign the document digitally via DottedSign. This is a common standard to capture the signer’s intent to sign.
2. Please insert your name which is a required field. You may leave the email address blank if it is not required by the sender.
3. After that, click “Confirm”.
4. Complete the signing form, and click “Finish”.
5. After that, click “Confirm” to confirm and send the document. You’re done!

Signer’s Perspective: How to Sign a Public Form

Once the Form Signer has completed the document, the Signer will receive a signature request in accordance with the signing order setup. Follow the instructions from this tutorial: Signing a document.

Example: the HR manager (role as the Signer) will be requested to sign off the leave form once the employee (role as the Form Signer) has completed it.

Kindly note that if the Public Form requires the Form Signer to fill in the email, the Form Signer will receive the signed copy at the end of the process. 

Example: the employee (role as the Form Signer) will receive a copy of the leave form once the HR manager (role as the Signer) has signed off the form.