Most businesses and institutions once had a foundation made up entirely of paper processes that tied every memo, report, paycheck, and signature into an elegantly elaborate, if incomprehensibly Gordian knot of redundancy. Nothing could get done before the right document was, to use the insightful words from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, “...signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.”

Back on Earth, UMBC is one of many higher education institutions taking the proverbial sword to the knot of archaic business processes. The Campus Card and Mail Services department has made headway by converting to digital forms for the Departmental Campus Card (DCARD).

The DCARD allows certain staff and faculty to charge their department for work- related expenses such as small food purchases, copier use, pay-for-print services, postal goods and/or small UMBC Bookstore purchases. Assistant Director Drew Belcher says that since most people do not think in terms of back-end verification and auditing, they do not always grasp the financial power the DCARD gives an individual and the steps necessary to ensure it is authorized and utilized properly.

Despite the complex approval process required for DCARD forms, UMBC’s electronic signature and digital workflow vendor, DocuSign, provides a simple, automated solution. IT Support Assistant Kristen Hodges, B.A. ‘14, English Communication and Technology, can create a single template that can be used for many departments. The program’s interface allows her to easily create a signing order and designate each field on the form to a specific individual. Once it is sent, the form is automatically routed to each signer via secure email, eliminating the time once spent transporting forms by hand or mail.

One particularly useful feature of digital forms is the tracking data that the system automatically records. This includes timestamps created every time someone views, edits, or signs a document. This information is critical during an internal or state audit that checks the validity of DCARD expenses. Belcher says he can easily create a document with all of the important data for any particular form and easily share it with third-party overseers in Financial Services.

Moving forward, Campus Card and Mail Services is looking to convert more forms to DocuSign, especially those requiring signatures from off-campus partners. Doing so will, “increase our productivity and allow us to accomplish more during the work day,” says Hodges.

Robust, versatile, and easy to use, digital signature technology empowers administrators to challenge the status quo and use its foundation to build a new process that is faster, smarter, and immune to parody.  

More Info:

• Visit the DocuSign myUMBC Group
• Visit UMBC's FAQ knowledge base

The UMBC Purchasing Card Program, part of the State of Maryland’s p-card program, allows departments to make small purchases (less than $5,000) quickly and easily. Although the adoption of this program reduced the amount of paperwork and processing time required for such purchases, the UMBC Department of Procurement and Strategic Sourcing (Procurement) is still required to strictly enforce the State’s policies and procedures for purchasing cards. This means that each application, agreement, and authorization must follow its own strict approval sequence to include the appropriate department head, as well as approvers from Procurement and Financial Services.

When the approvals were captured on a paper form, the signing process was quite an ordeal. Executive Director of Procurement & Strategic Sourcing Elizabeth Moss regretted the inefficiency and inconvenience of the need for staff to hand carry documents to each signer, often leaving the form to wait among dozens of other forms on the signer’s desk, before finally having each completed form filed away with the hope that it could be located if it was ever needed. The cost of paper and ink for printing all of these forms, when combined with the time spent transporting, storing, and retrieving countless documents, made it apparent that Procurement needed a more efficient solution.

As a result, Procurement turned to DocuSign, the electronic signature and digital workflow platform that UMBCs Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has integrated with the business processes of numerous departments on campus. This automated system eliminates as much excess as possible while simultaneously injecting a modest amount of urgency into the process in order to boost compliance.

DocuSign does more than just create electronic versions of paper forms. It also enables users to create digital envelopes that will travel via secure email along a predetermined signing route. Each signer just clicks on the “View Document” button and is transferred directly to the form, where they are guided through each required field in their portion of the form. Once they have signed, the form is automatically sent to the next signer in the workflow, during which the initiator may track the form as it progresses and view timestamps recorded when each signer viewed and submitted their section. When the form is completed, each signer gets another email allowing them to review the completed document, which can be automatically uploaded to a specified Box cloud folder and sent to a designated Request Tracker queue.

Using this tool, Procurement can fine tune the process to be as efficient as possible. Senders can specify the exact information each signer needs to provide while offering tooltips to clarify each field when necessary. Senders also can always see where the form is in the workflow and send reminders in order to rush a particularly time sensitive form.

“Typically, people don’t immediately sign every paper document as soon as it reaches their desk. Most will wait until they have reached a stopping point with their electronic work to turn to those papers that have accumulated in their inbox. With DocuSign, people are much more likely to approve the form quickly since they can sign it electronically as soon as it reaches them through email, and send it on its way immediately,” Moss explains. “This allows us to promptly act upon the information in whatever way needed by the card holder.”

By taking a sizeable chunk of their purchasing card paperwork out of the process, Procurement has made a big step towards a more streamlined and sustainable workflow for p-cards.

More Info:

·       Visit the DocuSign myUMBC Group

·       Visit UMBC's FAQ knowledge base

Before you start working in an office, it might be hard to believe how much of your workday can be spent sending emails. Even after you’ve gained enough experience to be comfortable drafting professional emails quickly and efficiently, email correspondence can still occupy a significant portion of your time.

Compliance Specialist Whitney Ames is quite the accomplished emailer. When creating Athletic Scholarship agreements for the Division of Student Affairs (DoSA), Ames had to send them individually to over 200 students, many of whom needed reminders and updates to get them to reply. Considering the time-sensitive nature of these forms, in addition to the numerous other tasks that DoSA staff must complete during the same period, it is clear that this system was not ideal for either staff or students. That's why DoSA has prioritized accessibility and quality service as they’ve replaced paper processes with digital workflow.

Working with UMBCs Division of Information Technology (DoIT), DoSA has converted many heavily used paper documents to DocuSign forms that can be signed and submitted electronically. Implemented in numerous departments including Campus Life and Athletics, these digital forms have made life easier for everyone involved. Instead of mailing incoming athletes 15 pages of health and permission forms, Athletics can send them out in a secure email that provides quick, easy access and signing ability on any device. The student athlete can then submit the form electronically, which relieves staff from having to sort and file lots of paper documents as well as scan and upload the document to their electronic medical records.

Assistant Athletic Trainer Kristina Miller says, “DocuSign has streamlined us to the point that our time is now better spent serving the student-athlete instead of dealing with papers everywhere.”

If a student doesn’t respond immediately, DocuSign automatically sends emails reminding them they have a form to sign. The document itself offers instructions and tool tips that tell the signer exactly what they need to know for each field, so DoSA staff do not need to spend a lot of time correcting mistakes. In addition, DocuSign Mobile allows signers to conveniently sign and submit electronic forms directly on their mobile device. DoSA can also track and resend documents when necessary.

According to IT Manager Ken Schreihofer,M.S. ‘11, Information Systems, these tools help meet student expectations of better service, with the first completed forms submitted within minutes of being sent out and total compliance approaching 100%.

Whitney Ames agrees, saying, “the most impressive change has been in our response rate. This year, we sent reminder emails to fewer than 10 students and most aid agreements were returned nearly a month ahead of their normal timeline.”

E-signature technology provides a robust platform with an easy-to-learn interface that can create solutions for numerous administrative concerns. Between DocuSign and Request Tracker (RT), Schreihofer says that DoSA is now running low on paper forms. With the help of automated digital workflows, any department can make gains in sensible efficiency and productivity.

More Info:

• Visit the DocuSign myUMBC Group

• Visit UMBC's FAQ knowledge base

The Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology (JCET) is a cooperative  Agreement between UMBC and the Earth Science Division of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to integrate scientists with the academic community. It's no surprise then that JCET employs fully functional digital forms in their internal business processes. Utilizing the electronic signature platform DocuSign, JCET is maximizing efficiency by drastically increasing workflow speed. Internal forms that sometimes took weeks to cycle through all the required signers now can be finished in mere hours.

JCET Assistant Director Margo Young began using DocuSign in September 2016. Before, she says, many internal documents would be emailed from UMBC to Goddard, where they were printed, signed, and put in official envelopes to be transported by truck back to UMBC. Since the forms contained sensitive information, they couldn’t simply be sent back by email. This meant that forms could take anywhere from a few days to a couple weeks to complete. Excited by the prospect of speeding things up a bit, Young started converting forms to DocuSign and trickling them into the office workflow.

Although many JCET faculty and staff had never used this new system of signing documents, they were quick to discover how secure and easily accessible this process is. As more and more people started utilizing digital signatures (often with Margo’s helping hand), the payoffs became more and more clear. All around, there was a noticeable decrease in worry over the status of a particular form and last-minute panic when an important document is nowhere to be found. The workflow as a whole became much smoother.    

Since then Young has created 115 digital envelopes and taught three others in her office to create them as well. Recently, Young was able to get a new hire approved by the JCET director right away, even though the director was on vacation in Africa at the time. He simply opened an email on his phone and in moments, the form was approved and already waiting in Young’s inbox for review.

Digital signature technology incorporates advanced security and authentication methods to validate signer identity, resulting in an e-signature that is more legally enforceable than a standard signature. The versatility that comes with being able to create and sign forms on any device, the intuitive user interface, and the secure and efficient transaction process all make e-signature technology an all-purpose tool for any modern business or university.

More Info:

·      Visit the DocuSign myUMBC Group

·      Visit UMBC’s FAQ knowledge base

Back in 2016, Trisha Wells from Student Affairs left a meeting with Assistant Vice President of Business Systems Joe Kirby to attend a campus budget meeting. She and Kirby had discussed plans to begin testing UMBC’s new electronic signature program, which utilized UMBC’s Enterprise DocuSign plan, by applying it to a department’s current business process. Their main difficulty, however, was finding a volunteer willing to dedicate the time to experiment with new software tools.

As Wells sat in the budget meeting contemplating this, she listened to Greg Capecci, manager of the Walker Ave. Apartments, describe the costs associated with Capstone’s $3600 contract with DocuSign. Wouldn’t it be perfect for Kirby to work with someone already utilizing electronic signatures and simply incorporate them in the UMBC enterprise plan? Before long, Kirby and Capecci were meeting regularly to discuss the different options and uses for electronic signature technology and how it can integrate with business practices that rely on paper or PDF/Word documents.

Since the Walker Ave. Apartments staff work with sensitive information such as Social Security numbers for license applications, it's no surprise that Capecci was already using electronic signature technology. The platform not only provides extensive data encryption and authentication, but also allows administrators to view specific data such as the IP address a form was signed from as well as dates and times a form was viewed.

With electronic signature technology, applications can travel quickly between the student, guarantor, and Capstone via secure email instead of slowly passing through certified mail. By transferring to UMBC’s enterprise contract, Capecci was able to maintain all of his old security and functionality while gaining access to Single Sign On, adding yet another layer of authentication. Also, the money Capstone saved by giving up its individual contract went directly back to the students in the form of cheaper license fees.

Moreover, students can access all of their documents through the same portal. All of their Capstone and UMBC DocuSign forms now use the same inbox, so students no longer have to navigate multiple online locations to view and sign important documents.  

In addition to making the licensing process cheaper, more efficient, and more secure for students, electronic signatures have also made things much easier for the Capstone staff. The templates they create for their forms can offer easy guidance and tooltips that help ensure that forms are filled out completely and accurately on the first try. This means staff spend less time correcting, reprinting, and resending forms on a day-to-day basis. On the rare occasion that a form does need to be resent, it can be done with just a few clicks. The intuitive interface and automated processes of electronic signature technology makes everyone’s work much more productive and streamlined.

Transferring from primarily paper documents to fully digital forms saved Greg Capecci the costs associated with printing, mailing, and storing a large volume of forms, the extra staff required to handle so many paper forms, and the time spent reviewing and correcting documents after submission. Switching over to the UMBC enterprise plan added further security and authentication options at no additional cost. In return, Joe Kirby was able to test the functionality of digital workflow in order to discover more ways it could enhance productivity for other departments on campus. For example, they were able to explore the use of shared envelopes between staff, enhancing their ability to collaboratively manage certain documents.

Now Assistant Vice Provost in the Division of Professional Studies (DPS), Trisha Wells recently partnered with Joe Kirby again to move DPS departmental program agreements into a DocuSign format.  Wells notes that "DocuSign is such a powerful workflow tool and I will continue to move additional business processes every chance I get!"

Stay tuned as more departments share their experience with electronic signatures.

More Info:

·      Visit the DocuSign myUMBC Group

·      Visit UMBC’s FAQ knowledge base

Any frequent visitor to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor will recognize the striking architecture of the Columbus Center. Located near the Baltimore Aquarium and the Hard Rock Cafe, the Columbus Center is a 250,000-square-foot facility purchased by the University System of Maryland back in 1998. It is the home of the Institute of Marine and Environmental Technology and hosts a number of events for University System of Maryland Institutions, as well as for private businesses and nonprofits throughout the region.

Naturally, they must create contracts for all of the events they host and the office space they lease, and they have adopted electronic signature technology to do so.

Utilizing the e-signature software DocuSign, the Columbus Center has been able to significantly decrease the time it takes for forms to circulate between signers. Not only has new digital processing reduced the amount of manual data entry required to complete these forms, it has also integrated very well with the Columbus Center’s current procedures.

Using a Google Add-On called Form Publisher, Event Coordinator Chad Nazworth has been able to prepopulate most of the event rental contract with the client’s responses in a Google form. After adding a few more details and verifying that everything is correct, he can then use a Google Add-On for DocuSign that will move the form directly to a template, automatically matching the signing roles and workflow with the names specified by the client. Nazworth can then edit the document and recipients list in a number of ways, such as adding a custom email message for each recipient to help guide them through the signing process.

Once the form is sent, it will arrive in each recipient’s inbox in order, allowing them to review and sign the document with only a few clicks. Meanwhile, Nazworth can track the form as it progresses through the workflow until it arrives at its final destination, eliminating the worry and panic that comes with waiting for important forms right before a deadline. Overall, a process that previously could take weeks can now be finished in mere days, thanks to the versatility of the digital platform and the inventive integration with familiar tools and business practices.

The Columbus Center was even able to get the Maryland Attorney General Office (OAG) on board with e-signatures. According to the Columbus Center’s Director of Administration Suzanne L. Crawford, the OAG was happy to accept a more efficient, eco-friendly process for lease agreements, especially those that need to be updated every year.

With multiple layers of security and authentication, the digital process also generates a complete history of every send, view, print, sign, and decline action and stores it in a certificate, which any participant in the workflow can download and print. This means that e-signatures are both legally binding and enforceable.   

In addition to the time, cost, and security benefits of using e-signatures, there is the empowerment that comes with taking control of the internal workflows of a business or institution and reorienting them to align with the interests of the staff as well as outside clients.

Sometimes change management can be a bit daunting, but Crawford recommends looking at it as an “opportunity to improve the quality of your own work experience as well as that of your peers and clients.” The benefits that business process improvement offers are immense, and digitizing workflow is a very strategic first step.

Tune in next week for more e signature success stories!

More Info:

·      Visit the DocuSign myUMBC Group

·      Visit UMBC’s FAQ knowledge base

An important, yet often overlooked, business practice is to break down and analyze each step of a given process to look for redundancies, bottlenecks, and particularly inefficient or slow procedures in order to improve them, put them back together, and create a more productive system. This practice requires active participation from all parties involved in the workflow as well as strong documentation and attention to detail, as most business processes include a mix of formal and informal procedures that may not adapt well to change.

It is no surprise then that the practice of improving workflow efficiency frequently defers to more urgent, high priority tasks. The Department of Human Resources (HR) here at UMBC has dedicated a great deal of effort to improving many aspects of their workflow as they convert to fully electronic forms. To do so, HR implemented the digital signature platform DocuSign.

Not so long ago, all forms came as paper documents that had to be signed in pen and submitted either in person or by mail. Only in the past few years have we enjoyed the relative convenience of uploading forms as Word Docs and PDFs. Even though the ESIGN Act was passed in 2000, businesses have been slow to adopt electronic signatures as standard procedure. As technology has advanced and the nuances of their legality and security have been resolved, electronic signatures are quickly becoming more ubiquitous. Now, most of the world’s largest technological, pharmaceutical, and financial companies are seeing significant improvements in efficiency and productivity while simultaneously reducing their impact on the environment by using electronic signatures.

However, one difficulty in adopting electronic signature technology is that the system needs to be explicitly taught every detail possible of the workflow in order to automate it. Though the task may seem mundane at first, it actually forces one to step back and reflect on how and why each step of the process in question takes place. This creates the opportunity to alter and enhance the old ways in order to maximize efficiency in the new system. HR is doing just that. From editing the wording of certain documents to altering the sequence of approvers, HR staff has left no stone unturned as they seek to improve the signing experience for both staff and students.

Starting out, the leadership team in Human Resources met to determine which forms would be converted to Docusign and then prioritized each of these forms. Focusing primarily on forms that are time sensitive and those dealt with in high volumes, they made sure to set up regular meetings with all of the stakeholders, including IT developers, department representatives, and subject experts. Director of Payroll Lisa Drouillard, who has been a key player in bringing DocuSign to HR, says, “The thing that has been most successful to facilitate the transition for electronic forms has been to devote time each week to focus on the project and keep the momentum going.”

“It is also important to make sure the right people are included, which often includes DoIT, the functional experts, and campus stakeholders to not only review the existing form process but also the business processes leading into and out of the form to ensure we are improving as much of the process as possible,” Drouillard adds. Ensuring that everyone is kept in the loop as forms are changed, previewed, piloted, and tested gives control to the right people so they can achieve an ideal solution.  

HR continues to work on converting and testing forms, and looks forward to rolling out their Docusign forms beginning in the Fall. Though it is going to take time to roll-out, HR is committed to creating a more efficient online process for not only the HR Department, but also the various stakeholders including the department’s administrative staff and our employee population.

Stay tuned for more success stories as we unveil how other UMBC departments are converting to electronic forms.

More Info:

• Visit the DocuSign myUMBC Group
• Visit UMBC's FAQ knowledge base