Digitizing and Automating Routine Data and Signature Collections with Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms
In today's fast-paced world, businesses are constantly looking for ways to streamline their processes and improve their workflow. One area that has seen significant improvements in recent years is the collection of routine data and signatures. Traditional pen and paper approaches can be slow, inefficient, and prone to errors. However, with the advent of digital signatures and online forms, businesses can now digitize and automate these processes, saving time and increasing productivity.
In this article, we will explore how Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms can work together seamlessly to streamline your processes and improve your workflow. We will start by discussing the difficulties with paper-based documentation and the benefits of digital signatures. We will then demonstrate the process of creating templates in Zoho Sign, building forms in Zoho Forms, integrating the two, and sending documents or signatures through this integration. We will also explore how this integration works from the perspective of the end-user.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. Difficulties with Paper-Based Documentation
3. Benefits of Digital Signatures
4. Zoho Sign: A Digital Signature Software
5. Zoho Forms: A Powerful Online Form Builder
6. Integrating Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms
7. Sharing and Embedding Zoho Forms
8. Using Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms Integration
9. Creating Reports in Zoho Forms
10. Conclusion
Introduction
Welcome to this article on digitizing and automating routine data and signature collections with Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms. In today's fast-paced world, businesses are constantly looking for ways to streamline their processes and improve their workflow. One area that has seen significant improvements in recent years is the collection of routine data and signatures. Traditional pen and paper approaches can be slow, inefficient, and prone to errors. However, with the advent of digital signatures and online forms, businesses can now digitize and automate these processes, saving time and increasing productivity.
In this article, we will explore how Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms can work together seamlessly to streamline your processes and improve your workflow. We will start by discussing the difficulties with paper-based documentation and the benefits of digital signatures. We will then demonstrate the process of creating templates in Zoho Sign, building forms in Zoho Forms, integrating the two, and sending documents or signatures through this integration. We will also explore how this integration works from the perspective of the end-user.
Difficulties with Paper-Based Documentation
How many times have you found yourself buried under piles of paperwork that never seem to end? If you're like most people, the answer is probably way too many times. Traditional paperwork can be really tiring. It entails printing documents, signing them physically, mailing them to recipients, collecting signatures, and managing them, resulting in a slow and inefficient process that reduces productivity.
Benefits of Digital Signatures
The solution to the difficulties of traditional paperwork is to switch to digital signatures. By using digital signatures, you can swiftly streamline this entire process and handle all of your documents in a centralized and easily accessible digital system. Many businesses around the world have begun to embrace digital signatures as they provide faster turnaround time, cost-effectiveness, and great ease by simplifying the procedure from beginning to end. Furthermore, shifting from physical papers to digital agreements is environmentally friendly and reduces paper waste.
Digital signatures often known as electronic signatures or a contemporary alternative to traditional handwritten signatures. Digital signatures are reliable, provide enhanced security, and can't be easily tampered with like handwritten signatures. They use digital signature certificates that have the signer's identity linked to them, making them more secure. Digital signatures allow signers to attach a digital fingerprint to a document, which works as a seal, and if the signed document is posed or tampered with, the document becomes invalid. Digital signatures are also legally binding and have the same legal status as handwritten signatures in most countries. Moreover, digital signatures are more convenient for everyone involved. Signers can use their smartphone or computer to sign agreements from anywhere at any time, making the process much more flexible and accessible.
Zoho Sign: A Digital Signature Software
Zoho Sign is a digital signature software that could make your life so much easier. With Zoho Sign, you can securely sign and send documents through a cloud-based platform. Not only that, but businesses worldwide have been able to save money by digitizing their documentation process with Zoho Sign. The best part is Zoho Sign offers advanced features such as templates, sign forms, bulk signing, and in-person signing, making your work more streamlined. If you need more customization, Zoho Sign is built with REST APIs that allow you to integrate it with various other applications. You can also use these APIs, web groups, and SDKs to build custom integrations.
Zoho Sign serves as a flexible solution that caters to signatories across industries, including sales, human resources, finance, IT operations, legal, marketing, support, product management, entertainment and media, real estate, NGOs, and numerous others. Regardless of your industry, you can always rely on Zoho's stringent data privacy and security requirements, such as the GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA, ensuring that your sensitive information is always protected. Zoho Sign also uses multi-factor authentication, access reports, tamper-proof audit trials, and digital certificates to ensure data integrity. Zoho Sign allows signers to be authenticated by sending one-time passwords through email or SMS or by requiring the attachment of supporting documents to confirm their identity. Adding to that, Zoho Sign utilizes blockchain-based timestamping and trusted document timestamping to provide proof of existence and track any modifications or instances of forgery. Zoho Sign also integrates with regional trust service providers to provide qualified electronic signatures, along with eID in the European Union, Swisscom Trust Services in Switzerland, and EU esign via Aadhar and E-mudra e-KYC in India, Sign with SingPass in Singapore, and advanced electronic signatures with Trust Factory in South Africa. Zoho Sign complies with the majority of regional and international e-sign legislation, including PIPEDA in Canada, the E-Sign Act and UETA in the United States, the eIDAS in the European Union, the Information Technology Act of 2000 in India, and the Electronic Transaction Act in Australia and other Southeast Asian countries.
Zoho Sign is a user-friendly solution that is available on a variety of platforms. The app is accessible on any device through a web browser or as native applications for Android, iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and Windows. It is synchronized across all your devices, providing for a smooth transition between platforms. This feature gives you the ultimate flexibility to work from any device at any time, assuring maximum productivity. Zoho Sign is one of the most tightly integrated apps in the Zoho ecosystem, integrating with over 15 commonly used Zoho apps. Not only that, but it also connects with prominent third-party ecosystems and applications such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Zapier, HubSpot, and Dropbox. With this level of integration, Zoho Sign makes it simple to streamline your workflow and manage all of your tasks from a single location.
Zoho Forms: A Powerful Online Form Builder
Online forms are electronic documents used to gather information from individuals or organizations. These forms are developed and accessible through the internet. Online forms can be designed to collect a variety of information, such as customer feedback, event registrations, job applications, and much more. They offer a more efficient and convenient way to collect data and are quickly replacing traditional paper-based forms. Online forms are used in a wide range of industries, including healthcare, education, government, finance, and retail. They are used to gather client feedback, handle orders, register for events, collect job applications, and more.
Zoho Forms is a powerful online form builder and data collection tool that helps businesses streamline their data management processes. With Zoho Forms, you can easily create and distribute forms tailored to your specific needs, with over 30 field types, customizable themes to match your branding, and situation-specific templates. Zoho Forms enables you to design and share forms with ease. Zoho Forms offers advanced features such as creating merge templates, setting up notification alerts, and connecting forms to other business tools to automate your workflows based on the data collected through forms to save time and effort. With the Zoho Forms mobile app, you can collect data on the go, available for both iOS and Android. The app allows you to collect data even when you're offline. It also allows you to use your phone's camera to effortlessly scan barcodes for data autofill and directly add images to your forms.
Integrating Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms
To integrate Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms, you need a valid Zoho Form subscription and a valid Zoho Sign subscription at the professional edition or higher. Each submission that includes automation features, such as sending the document signing link via email or redirecting the visitor to the document for signing upon form submission, will use either an automation credit or Zoho Sign credits, depending on your Zoho Sign subscription plan. The enterprise plan provides automation credits each month proportionate to the number of license users. However, if your organization runs out of automation credits, subsequent submissions will consume those credits, which can be purchased as add-ons.
To integrate Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms, first, create a Zoho Sign template for your document and customize it with the necessary fields. Next, create a Zoho form for collecting document data. Then, integrate the Zoho form with the Zoho Sign template by mapping the recipient fields on the template with the corresponding form fields. Fetch the recipients' names and email addresses from the form fields. Choose an action to be performed upon form submission or save the configuration to complete the integration. Finally, send the document for signing to the recipients you wish to collect signatures from by selecting their form entries.
Sharing and Embedding Zoho Forms
To share your Zoho form as a public link, select the public option under share with, then simply copy the link provided under form permalink URL and share it with your audience. You can disable the public link using the toggle in the top right corner. Another option is to share the form as a QR code. This allows your audience to directly access the form on their devices. You can also share the form on your social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, directly from Zoho Forms. Zoho Forms also provides you with options to share your forms with specific users in your organization, groups, and all users of your organization. To embed the form, select embed and choose your preferred embedding option. Then, Zoho Forms will generate a code for you to use, which you can then embed on your web page.
Using Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms Integration
To use Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms integration, the applicant will receive an email with a digital signature request after submitting the form. If you had chosen the sender documents linked to recipient's email option while integrating, they should click start signing in the received email. Upon clicking start signing, they will be redirected to Zoho Sign. If you had chosen redirect to Zoho signed document as your preferred action upon form submission, the applicant would directly land on this page after submitting the form. Here, they must review the details on screen and click proceed to document. Next, they must carefully review the terms and conditions and click agree and continue to proceed further. Then, they should fill in all the required sign-up information, such as their name, or whatever they have been asked to fill. Finally, they should click finish to complete the signing process. After completing the signing process, they will have the option to download a copy of the signed document for their records.
To manually send documents for signature using the Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms integration, go to the Zoho Forms dashboard and navigate to the forms or report section. Now click on all entries below the corresponding form or report that you want to work with. Once you have identified the entries that you want to send documents for signing, select their check boxes. Next, click on the send for sign button. Finally, a pop-up will appear asking for your confirmation to proceed with sending the document for signature. Simply click to proceed, and now you have successfully sent the document for signature.
Creating Reports in Zoho Forms
To create reports in Zoho Forms, access the reports tab from the Zoho Forms dashboard or select reports under your preferred form. When you access reports from a form, you will be taken to the report section of that specific form, where you will find a list of all reports created for the form. When you access reports directly from the dashboard, you will be taken to the reports page, where a list of all reports you have created till date will be displayed. From the reports page, you can manage, edit, and generate new reports for your forms. To create a new report, click on the new report button located in the top right corner of the page. Next, name your report and select the form for which you want to create the report and click on create. Your new report will now be available for you to customize.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms are powerful tools that can help businesses digitize and automate routine data and signature collections. By using these tools, businesses can save time, increase productivity, and reduce errors. Zoho Sign offers advanced features such as templates, sign forms, bulk signing, and in-person signing, making your work more streamlined. Zoho Forms enables you to design and share forms with ease, with over 30 field types, customizable themes, and situation-specific templates. Integrating Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms is easy and can be done in a few simple steps. By using Zoho Sign and Zoho Forms integration, businesses can streamline their processes and improve their workflow.
