Building Multi-party eSignature Flow in ServiceNow using DocuSign

[Roshan Rao1]

Introduction

Today, I am going to show you how to build a multi-party eSignature solution using Flow Designer, Integration Hub and DocuSign, which shows how applications can be quickly built on the platform using its low-code and no-code capabilities.

Every department in an enterprise has its own system of record that is critical in supporting business functions for that department. These systems often work in silos and contain valuable data that is necessary to provide great experiences to employees and customers. ServiceNow is a platform of platforms that connects these siloed systems and provides great experiences. It does that by providing a single platform, single data model and a single cloud-native architecture that provides foundational capabilities such as flow designer, integration hub, service catalog and developer tools to build applications. Out-of-the-box workflows are provided for IT, employee and customer workflows. These solutions can be extended or new solutions can be built using the App Engine. Great 24x7 experiences are provided through web, mobile and conversational user interfaces.

In working with ServiceNow's system integration partners, I noticed that there is a need to clarify the eSignature capabilities of the Now platform as it relates to building multi-party digital forms that follow the requestor/fulfiller construct in service management. In the ideal world, work intake can simply be done through rich user interfaces and managed on the platform through a task-based flow. However, for customers in regulated markets such as the US federal government, organizational processes are usually run by policy mandates that require specific government forms be used. These forms are intended to be inked and/or filled digitally, i.e., PDF form with fields. In this article, I will demonstrate a sample solution on the Now platform for a multi-section form requiring e-signature using DocuSign.

The US Federal form DD-2875 is a commonly required form for system access management in the Department of Defense and is used for our demo solution. The form is used to request new access, modification and termination of access. It is a multi-section, multi-party form; there are at least 5 people needed to complete the form, each person required to fill specific sections. Some roles in completing an access request are:
    1. Requestor: This person is the subject of the request, i.e., the person that requires access changes.
    2. Supervisor: A supervisor reviews the request and endorses it with a justification.
    3. Security Manager: A security manager validates that the requestor has a background check and/or appropriate clearance on file.
    4. IT Administrator: An IT admin makes modifications to system access controls per the request.
    5. Auditor: This person does a final quality check on the request.
Each of the above participate in a flow where mostly linear tasks result in completion of form sections, and signatures for completed sections.

The Service Catalog on the Now platform provides a predefined construct for accepting requests and fulfilling them. There is an in-platform e-signature feature that provides capabilities for platform users to sign documents. However, the in-platform feature is limited in that it does not allow for multiple participants to incrementally complete and sign forms digitally. The Now platform provides integrations to third-party digital signature solutions, DocuSign and Adobe Sign, that support solutions for workflows similar to the DD-2875. These integrations are available as spokes for the Integration Hub capability and can be connected to the service management construct using Flows built using Flow Designer.

Solution Demo

Below is a functional demonstration of a sample DD-2875 implementation that uses DocuSign Templates.

Here is the sequence of actions in the demo:
    1. A platform user navigates to the Service Catalog and System Authorization Access Request (SAAR) item and submits it on behalf of another employee, John Doe (requestor).
    2. A Service Desk user receives this request and proceeds to assigning individuals that are required to complete this request: John Super (supervisor), John Secmann (security manager), John Bits (IT admin) and John Checker (auditor).
    3. Once the assignment task is complete, the system sends the SAAR form to each party using DocuSign. Some basic information is pre-filled in the document using data from the platform.
    4. Once signatures are completed, the flow continues in ServiceNow.
        a. Signed document and a signature summary are attached to the request
        b. Field data from the signed form are transferred back to the request
        c. The request is marked as closed.

Technical Brief

The key components of this solution are as follows:
    1. DocuSign template: A SAAR Demo template was added in DocuSign that allowed for the five recipient roles to be configured and fields from the DD-2875 form to be attributed to each role. Once the template is created, follow the steps to configure the DocuSign account for app integration per the DocuSign spoke documentation. The one area where I felt the instructions were not very clear is the Webhook setup. This custom configuration is required to ensure that ServiceNow is notified when all recipients have completed signing. This configuration is done from Admin -> Integrations -> Connect -> Add Configuration -> Custom.

    2. Service Catalog item: The service catalog item allows service portal users to submit access requests for themselves or on behalf of others. Given that a significant amount of information will be entered on the PDF form, the catalog item needs to submit minimal information at submission. When a request is submitted a Requested Item record is created with variables containing data provided at submission. For this solution, I only required the Request Type and Requested For fields to be filled in to start the request. Several other fields were added as variables in variable sets and hidden as needed using UI policies. Each variable set represented a section of the SAAR form. The purpose of the variables is to allow transfer of data between ServiceNow and the document envelope in DocuSign. It allows for prefill of data in the document prior to the signing process, and allows for automation to be built using data coming back from the signing process.
    3. Flow: This flow is triggered by the catalog item and performs the following actions at a high level:

• Create a catalog task for the service desk to review the request and assign participants (recipients)
• Adds assigned recipients to DocuSign envelope
• Transfers data (outbound) from requested item to envelope using a custom field mapping table
• Sends envelope to recipients and waits for signature flow completion in DocuSign
• Transfers data (inbound) from completed envelope to requested item
• Closes out request.

The only customization that was made to support this solution is the addition of a Reference field to the Task table. The field stores a reference to the DocuSign Envelope record once it is created. Though the DocuSign spoke along with the Envelope and Recipient tables are provided as a part of the platform, the reference field was added to the HR Task table. Everything else to support this solution are configurations to out-of-the-box components.

On the topic of HR, some partners have asked how this solution may be tied to HR Onboarding. ServiceNow's HR Lifecycle Events application allows you to add HR tasks within the Onboarding process that are tied to items from the Service Catalog. An example of this is the "Setup Active Directory Account" activity in the "Pre-boarding" activity set, which is part of the HR demo data. I added a similar activity called "Complete DD-2875" to the Pre-boarding activity set.

Summary

In the DD-2875 example, the normal paper-based flow can be time consuming as requests are made across multiple locations. The Now platform addresses this problem by allowing our customers to build low-code solutions that lay the foundation to modernize business processes and elevate experiences, and not simply digitizing a paper-oriented process. It is a platform-of-platforms that makes work flow.

Credits

Dan Reinhardt, Advisory Solution Consultant, ServiceNow: Thanks for continuing to assist our partners with the art of the possible; and proof reading this. 🙂