e-signature for custom forms, has anyone deployed a solution in Now?

[woodyfairley]

I have developed a Purchase Request form (custom app) for federal employees and contractors to use when requesting purchases using a government furnished credit card (p-card purchases). I now realize that the process needs to incorporate e-signatures, has anyone deployed an e-signature solution for their forms?

I typed up a "pseudo code" to capture the desired behaviors to comply with e-signature requirements; it is not complicated and even a novice developer like me can produce the desired results, but we do not want to re-invent the wheel, and we do not want the burdens associated with developing the solution.

Have you deployed a third party solution such as Adobe Sign, DocuSign, AccuSign, etc?

Have you developed your own internal e-signature solution? Are you willing to share your experiences?

Have you deployed forms with policies regarding e-signature requirements?

Can you share any market research, analyses, RFI results?

Kind Regards,

Woody

PS - thank you in advance for your consideration of my questions, this is not a formal request for information (RFI) in fact my questions are directed toward other federal employees, and I hope to share what I learn (or develop).

[reedwowens]

Woody,

Over the years of working with the Federal Government, I've heard this request many times.   To get the best answer, you'll need to answer a few questions otherwise it's like asking what car is the best.

• What do you mean as e-signature?
• • Is this just a validation of the user who is logged in
  • Requires two-factor authentication
  • Needs to be certificate-based signatures from a PIV or CAC card
    
    
• Can an outside entity be trusted with private information?  (The 3rd party solutions you mentioned)
  
  
• How secure does the signature need to be?

Sounds like to me you have simple e-signature requirements if it can be done easily.

At UXstorm, the next release of our PDF tool will support Digital  Certificate Based signatures.   This has caused us to go through a lot of research and development of a solution that works in a Government approved environment with only the requirement of ServiceNow/UXstorm instance.   If you wish, I would be happy to discuss our findings.

[woodyfairley]

Thank you for your reply Reed, your questions are valid but my intention with this post is not to solicit solutions but instead to query other federal employees regarding their experiences on this matter. I agree that this question has been asked and answered a number of different ways, yet here I am facing the obstacle and seeking a solution.

I have already established a dialog with the leadership team here at NOAA to define the vision of success, and I've even completed the pseudo code for an internally developed regulation- and standards-compliant solution, but as I stated above, I do not want to re-invent the wheel on this matter.

If I may request, please insert a link to your product page for those of us seeking solutions. Right now, I am mainly aiming my query to invite other federal employees to engage in the dialog, perhaps this is not the best forum but I am incorporating it into my discovery activities.

Kind Regards,

Woody

[reedwowens]

Thanks Woody.   I'm interested in this thread also and what is acceptable.   Our product that will benefit from Digital Signatures is (UXstorm PDF).   We have customers using basic electronic signatures now in the Federal Space and many wanting the Certificate-based signatures.   This is what leads us to our next release.  

If you wish, I can be reached at 301.520.1421 (EST) or Reed.Owens@UXstorm.com, if you wish to discuss what we've encountered with e-signatures.

Have a great weekend,

Reed

[ty_roach]

As Reed says, there's a difference between e-signature and digital signatures. 

We may need both and have explored Adobe Sign but are now backing away as this is a costly solution.

We're also considering whether or not e-signature will be sufficient for our needs (which it likely will be in the majority of our cases).  I've enabled ServiceNow's e-signature plugin and it seems work, though I've noticed that it has issues in the Service Portal, particularly if you are in a Multi-Provider SSO environment and if you toggle on/off SSO capabilities it may require you to clear your browser cache (or so I've found).  Also, as ServiceNow's documentation states, you'll need to ensure the Force AuthnRequest is supported by the IdP if in a SSO env.

As for digital signatures, we're considering options and may deal with these situations later.

Ty