Docusign Trainer Tips: How to Add Supplemental Documents to Your Envelopes

Hi, I'm a DocuSign University Trainer. Today, I'll be showing you how to include supplemental documents on your envelopes and templates. With supplemental documents, you can send additional documents that need to be reviewed or acknowledged by your recipients. For example, maybe you need to send your company account policies that need to be read alongside a contract that you're sending for signature. Supplemental documents cannot have fields applied to them in the same way that a normal document can. Instead, the sender can choose what the recipient behavior will be for a supplemental document. The options include no required behavior, they have to view the supplement, they have to accept the supplement, they need to view and accept the supplement, or they need to read and accept a supplement. We'll discuss these behavior options a little bit later. To add a supplemental document to an envelope or a template, simply upload it into DocuSign. And using the ellipses icon, select set as supplement. You'll see a supplemental strip appears on the document. You can have multiple supplemental documents if necessary. For example, here I've got an account policies that I'm setting as a supplement and some additional terms and conditions that I'm setting as a supplement. These are both alongside my main document that I'm sending for signature, which is an NDA. You can drag and drop the documents to change the order. For example, maybe I want the NDA to appear in between the account policies and the additional terms and conditions, or at the bottom. I'm going to go ahead and actually have my NDA appear first and then my two supplemental documents appear at the bottom. We'll go ahead and add a few recipients, as well as adjust the messaging. On the next page, you'll see that the supplemental documents appear as a strip, and we cannot add fields to the supplemental documents in the same way that we can with our normal document. So, starting with my regular NDA, this is my main document that I'm sending for signature, I'll go ahead and add a couple of fields. And coming down to the supplemental document strips, when I click on the account policies supplemental document, you'll see that I'm prompted to choose what the required behavior will be for the recipient. And we can customize the behavior for each recipient individually. For example, right now I'm customizing the behavior for Ronald receiving, but if I switch the recipient in the top left corner to Diane disclosing, my other signer, and I click back on that supplemental document, I can customize the behavior separately for this person. So, walking through the required behavior options, first we have no action needed. This means that the recipient can see the supplemental document, but they are not required to view it, accept it, or read it. View only, or must view, this means that the recipient is required to open and view the supplement. Accept only, or must accept, this means that the recipient is required to click accept on the supplement. View and accept, or must view and accept. This means the recipient must click view to open the supplement and click accept to accept it. And then finally, read and accept or must read and accept. This means that the recipient must click view to open the supplement, scroll to the bottom, therefore reading it, and then at the bottom, they must click accept. So starting with this account policies document, we'll say that the disclosing party, Diane, needs to read and accept the account policies. Versus if I change the recipient in that top left corner to Ronald receiving, and I click back on the account policies document, I can customize the behavior for this supplement for the other recipient. So maybe Ronald just needs to view the supplement. Versus for the other supplemental document, the additional terms and conditions, I can customize the behavior here as well. So Ronald receiving, maybe he needs to read and accept the terms and conditions. And going back over to Diane disclosing, for the terms and conditions supplement

maybe she just needs to view. All interactions with the supplemental documents by recipients are going to be recorded in the history of the envelope. So I'll go ahead and send this envelope out, and we'll take a look at the signing process for the recipients. So here is the email notification for Diane disclosing. When they click into the DocuSign signing process, they're going to see the main document that we've sent out for signature, which is the NDA, and the fields that we've added. Additionally, at the bottom, they're going to see these supplements. Now, if Diane tries to just click finish without interacting with the supplements, they're going to get an error message because we've required some behavior. So, for the account policies, Diane needs to click view. That's required. And we've said that she needs to read. So, she needs to click accept at the bottom of this document, but it is unclickable until she scrolls through, theoretically reading it. Now, she can click accept. Versus for the terms and conditions, we said that her only interaction is to view, so she can click view and click out. And now, she's completed all of her required behavior for the supplemental documents. Again, all of these interactions with the supplements by recipients will be logged in the history of the envelope. If we open up the notification for the other signer, Ronald, same thing. He will need to fill in the fields on the main document, the NDA. And towards the bottom, he has different behavior for the supplements. So, he needs to view the account policies only. And he needs to read the terms and conditions. So, opening that up can only click accept once he scrolls through to the bottom. And again, all of his interactions will also be logged in the history of the envelope. It's important to note that DocuSign admins can set the default recipient behavior for supplemental documents within the admin signing settings area. Scrolling down here to the supplemental documents section, this is where administrators can set the default behavior for supplemental documents. Do signers need to view supplemental documents? accept? Or do they need to read supplemental documents? If none of these check boxes are selected, there will be no default behavior set and the choice will be left up to the sender. Assuming that they have permissions to use supplemental documents in the first place. Which brings up a good point. Within a permission profile, you can choose who has access to work with supplemental documents. For example, if I go into edit one of my custom permission profiles under user permissions, scrolling down, we have a section for supplemental documents. Do I want to allow this profile to work with supplemental documents? And then furthermore, can they override the administrative default behavior that was set? So, you are now ready to include supplemental documents in your DocuSign envelopes or templates.