How to make people sign in a set order
Choose to have people sign in order before you send, and put them in the order you want. Each person is emailed only when it is their turn, and nobody can sign before the person ahead of them has.
Setting it up
While the document is a draft, add the signers in the order they should sign and choose in order rather than all at once. You can change the order and the setting until you send; after that the document is fixed.
What happens after you send
- Only the first person is emailed.
- When they sign, you are told, and the next person is emailed a link of their own.
- If somebody opens their link before it is their turn, the page tells them to wait for an email and to do nothing else.
- Reminders only go to the person whose turn it is. Nobody waiting further down the order is reminded.
- When the last person signs, everyone, including you, gets the signed PDF and the completion certificate.
When to use it
Signing in order suits documents where one party signs first and the other countersigns, such as an employer after an employee, or a client after a contractor. For everything else, all at once is quicker, because nobody waits on anybody.
If anyone declines, the document stops for everybody, in order or not. How declining works.