We created tools for clients to sign documents in Bitrix24 — a life hack from Avivi

The ability to use your own signature as a confirmation of intentions or agreement to the terms is an option that absolutely everyone likes:

• For customers, this is a common procedure that increases responsibility for intent;

• For business owners, a way to make sure their offers or terms were understood or at least read;

• For the business itself, this is definitely not an unnecessary operation, which indicates a high level of business relations between the two parties.

So it would be good to use a signature in working with clients, especially in the conditions of modern technical progress. But in practice, everything is not as simple as it seems.

What is considered a personal signature?

Scientists believe that a person's signature appeared even earlier than writing in general. Ancient people scratched special markings on trees and rocks that indicated their ownership of land for hunting or harvesting. Signatures are found in clay tablets of the Sumerians and in the collections of Ancient Egypt. Later in history, signatures of important members of society, such as rulers, military leaders or artists, are found everywhere. And it was only from the era of enlightenment that everyone who could hold a pen or a pencil began to use personal signatures.

Signatures under the text of the US Constitution

For a long time, a person's signature was important for record keeping and confirming the signer's identity. The signature still has a special significance in forensics, as it indicates the peculiarities of handwriting, which is individual for each person. The era of digitalization has put new requirements before the signature. An electronic document cannot be signed by hand, and a drawn picture can be easily copied or even generated, so it is of little practical use. That is why electronic digital signatures were invented - a set of special code and protocols, which can actually be an analogue of a signature in the digital world. We previously wrote about this and the possibility of integration with Bitrix24 in detail in the article "Confirmed by a signature" — custom digital signing of documents in Bitrix24 ".

Screenshot from Wikipedia

However, the world legal community has not reached a single conclusion regarding the signature and its status. In other words, almost every country has different legislation: in some countries, a signature is considered part of personal data, in others it is not. The legislation of the United States of America is significantly different from the European one and even more so from the rest of the world. At the same time, signatures of famous people are placed directly on Wikipedia pages. Therefore, if your company is interested in using customer signatures, you should thoroughly study the legal framework of your region and act strictly within the limits of the Legislation.

Signing documents in Bitrix24

Avivi customers who have ordered the custom development of document signatures in their own system are not prohibited from collecting and storing signatures. However, from a PR point of view, this is an effective solution and an additional guarantee that clients will actually read the text of the documents. In fact, agreeing to the Terms and Conditions is a standard Bitrix24 checkbox, which the client fills in before confirming the intention to cooperate.

But legal aspects are not important for us. Now we are talking about custom tools that allow customers to simulate the signature of documents. It is worth explaining that the company uses a custom CRM entity to work with customers. This is possible in newer versions of Bitrix24, where "Smart processes" updates are already installed. We talked about this in detail in the article: "Smart Process Automation in Bitrix24 — your own possible work with CRM scenarios". But it is possible to implement custom functionality to any standard Bitrix24 entity.

According to the business logic of our orders, the company manager sends the client a link to a PDF document generated by the system. The user gets to a separate page of the Bitrix24 portal, where he can read the text of the document. Next, he can agree to the Terms and Conditions and leave a signature in a special custom field. There is nothing similar in the standard functionality of Bitrix24 (for example, we drew a star). If the user is working on a computer, this can be done with a mouse, if from the gadget screen - draw with a finger.

After confirmation, the "signature" is transferred to the custom field of the CRM entity. Here it is stored as an image and is evidence that the client has agreed to the company's terms. This is radically different from the methods used to integrate Bitrix24 with electronic digital signature services.

Life hack from Avivi

To perform this task, custom development or connection of a third-party solution is required, which is only possible for the Bitrix24 on-premise edition. One such is the open source SignaturePad library. At first glance, a small solution, in fact, has a wide range of possibilities:

• Changing the color of the line;

• Changing the thickness of the line;

• Changing the background color;

• Clearing the field or canceling the previous action;

• Saving images in various formats (PNG, JPG, SVG).

As a bonus, I would like to note that the application processes drawn lines, adds thickening that imitates human handwriting. Signatures made in SignaturePad look natural and beautiful. And thanks to the API, their transfer and saving in Bitrix24 is much simplified. Therefore, the implementation of the project required less time for customization than for individual development from start to finish.

As you can see, there are no limits for Avivi developers in development for Bitrix24. We will be happy to help implement any of your ideas, if it is necessary for business. Our solutions save your time and increase your profits. So contact the managers of our company and let's make your Bitrix24 exactly what you need.