How SigningHub works

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SigningHub is a comprehensive digital signature solution, which can quickly optimise the way businesses deliver, review, approve and sign their business documents. Document signing workflow can be initiated by users or business applications. Users may interact directly with the SigningHub web interface or the whole signing functionality can be embedded within your own web application/ portal.

Using the SigningHub interface

Upload – The user logs into SigningHub and uploads the document to be signed off. Documents are converted to PDF/A format for long-term rendering and accessibility.
Prepare – The user adds signer info, initials fields, legal notices, signing order, etc. Alternatively the user selects a pre-defined workflow template. Then sends the document for sign-off.
Notify 1st Recipient – SigningHub notifies the first recipient of their pending signing action via email.
Workflow History – The owner can keep track of sign-off status at any time by checking the document workflow history.
Notify Owner – SigningHub notifies the owner that the document was signed, and also notifies any subsequent recipients of their pending signing action (and step 4 repeats for each recipient in workflow).
Review & Sign – First recipient logs in and is authenticated using the configured method. Then the recipient must accept any legal notices and complete any mandatory form fields before signing.

At the time of signing, the user creates their e-signature which is then secured with an advanced digital signature using a unique PKI signing key owned by the user. This private signing key can be held securely on the server for the user so that it can be used from anywhere, or locally-held on smartcard/ USB token or on the user’s mobile device.

Embedding SigningHub in your web application
You may already have a web application for interacting with your users. In such cases, your web application is responsible for user login and performing the necessary business-related functions. The only thing required from SigningHub is the ability to present a document to the user and capture the user’s digital signature in a secure and legally binding manner, all from within your own web pages. This requirement can be met by using SigningHub in a tightly integrated mode.

In “tightly integrated” mode, the SigningHub functionality can be easily embedded within any on-premises or commercial web application by using our high-level RESTful API. The SigningHub functionality is embedded within your webpages using iFrames, this means that the user sees no change to the webpage branding or the Internet browser address bar, in fact they will not be aware that SigningHub is even involved.

Login – User logs into your web application and performs some business transaction, which requires a signature.
Document Presentation – Your web application makes an API call to SigningHub to present the required document inside an iFrame on your web page.
User Reviews & Signs – As discussed earlier, recipient must accept any legal notices, complete any mandatory form fields and then sign (e-signature and/ or advance digital signature).
Notify Web App – SigningHub notifies your web application that the user has signed the document, and returns the signed document.

The actual signing process is the same as before, so includes support for server-side, local and mobile signing. The only difference being that the user is not aware they are dealing with SigningHub as all the functionality is realised from within your web application. Even the user registration and session login with SigningHub is achieved through the API, so that users may not feel inconvenient to register & login manually on two separate systems.

Other hybrid use cases are also possible, e.g. the business application initiates sign-off workflow but users interact directly within the SigningHub web interface for the actual signing. We term this as “loose integration”. All of these different modes of operation are available regardless of whether you are using SigningHub Cloud or SigningHub Enterprise (i.e. on-premises instance).