Text: Marianne Fuglsang Welling Farsinsen, AAU Communication and Public Affairs Photo: AAU

In December 2023, the new digital signature solution DocuSign saw the light of day at AAU, and since then, work has already begun in handling the approximately 10,000 signatures with AAU's external partners that the solution is expected to handle annually for AAU.

In the past, the workflow was that documents were sent manually to one signing party at a time. The recipient had to print the document, sign it by hand, scan the document and send it back to the sender. The document could then be sent to the next recipient for signature until there was a single document with all signatures, which could be sent to all parties as a receipt and finally archived in WorkZone. A process that most people who have been involved in can recognize as tedious and slow.

With DocuSign, everything is done digitally and there's even the option for multiple parties to sign simultaneously. This makes the process much smoother and saves everyone involved time and effort. Finally, security is improved as the person creating the document for signature can add access via, for example, MitID, ensuring that only the right recipients can access the document.

One of the places at AAU where signature processes are a part of everyday life is at the Contracts Unit, where lawyer Carl-Erik Lauritzen explains the new solution:

- DocuSign streamlines the signing circus. Who signs where, when and how has been made much easier with this solution. Through the solution, we send an email to those who need to sign, and they can even access the document at the same time to sign digitally. This provides a more streamlined process where we can keep track of who is signing, and it minimizes the risk of errors occurring along the way, where we previously had to spend time contacting those involved in the process to ensure the correct signature. I have recently benefited from the solution in a large consortium agreement for AAU with seven parties, where we completed the signature process in five minutes, so it is very positive, says Carl-Erik Lauritzen.

Before DocuSign recently became an option for all AAU employees, a wish/needs assessment was carried out in 2023 among all departments and in the Shared Service departments. Among other things, it showed the need to be able to send to NemID and MitID, legally binding logs, and compliance with EU standards for GDPR and security. DocuSign embraces these needs and wishes and can therefore create value in a wide range of AAU workflows, such as employment agreements for projects, timesheets for student assistants, annual reports, board minutes, contract documents in connection with procurement and tenders, consultation responses, exchange agreements, scholarships, incoming and outgoing exchange students, guest lecturers, resignation documents, salary supplements and holiday agreement forms, etc.