Installing, Configuring, and Using M-Files For Adobe Acrobat Sign
Installing, Configuring, and Using M-Files For Adobe Acrobat Sign
Adobe Acrobat Sign is a web application that can be used for signing PDF documents. When integrated with M-Files, a
document to be signed is sent from M-Files to Adobe Acrobat Sign, after which the Adobe Acrobat Sign service sends an
email notification to the recipients. Recipients sign the document and add other additional information with the Adobe
Acrobat Sign service. The document is also digitally signed at this point. Finally, the signed and updated document is
added to M-Files.
2.1 Installing the M-Files Adobe Acrobat Sign Vault Application .................................................................................... 6
2.2.1 Connecting to Adobe Acrobat Sign with M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign E-Signature Package ...................... 7
2.2.2 Connecting to Adobe Acrobat Sign with Your Own Account ........................................................................... 8
2.3 Setting Adobe Acrobat Sign User Accounts for M-Files Login Accounts ................................................................... 9
2.4.2 Defining Configuration Values for the Adobe Acrobat Sign Document ......................................................... 10
2.4.4 Setting the Read-Only Permissions for Automatically Filled Properties ........................................................ 13
2.4.5 Defining Workflows for the Adobe Acrobat Sign Integration ........................................................................ 14
2.5 Setting Up the Adobe Acrobat Sign Integration Configuration in M-Files Admin ................................................... 16
2.6 Customizing Adobe Acrobat Sign Look and Feel (Optional) .................................................................................... 19
3.1.1 Email Messages from Adobe Acrobat Sign to the Sender ............................................................................. 21
3.6.1 Moving to the "Sent for Editing" Workflow State (Optional) ........................................................................ 23
6. Reference Documents....................................................................................................................................................... 26
Method 1: Completing the Configuration with the Built-In Vault Structure ......................................................................... 27
This document tells you how to set up and use the Adobe Acrobat Sign integration by M-Files. The integration can be used
for sending documents for signing or other action, regardless of whether the recipients have M-Files or Adobe Acrobat Sign
user accounts.
The information in this document applies to the application version 2.2.116 and later.
This table explains the essential, subject-specific terminology and acronyms used in this document.
TERM DEFINITION
1.2 Prerequisites
Please make sure that your environment meets these requirements before you move forward.
Communication between the Adobe Acrobat Sign vault application and Adobe Acrobat Sign servers uses the HTTPS protocol.
This means that the data communication is in HTTP format and secured with SSL/TLS. The communication is always initiated
by the M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign vault application. Thus, the only port for outgoing HTTPS traffic to be opened in the
firewall is the default 443.
Additionally, some customers may have a requirement for limiting outgoing traffic to specific IP addresses. To restrict Adobe
Acrobat Sign authentication IP ranges, refer to these Adobe instructions.
When there are status changes (caused by, for example, signing or declining) in the documents, Adobe Acrobat Sign sends
an email to the account that is used for sending the requests from the Adobe Acrobat Sign vault application to the Adobe
Acrobat Sign servers (see section 2.5). These emails should be available if needed. At the time of writing this document, the
email address, from which the account should be able to receive email messages, are [email protected] and
[email protected]. For more information, refer to these Adobe instructions.
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1.2.4 Licensing Requirements
To use the integration, you must have a suitable M-Files subscription or an Adobe Acrobat Sign subscription.
M-Files subscription
The Adobe Acrobat Sign integration is an additional M-Files component. If it is not included in your subscription, you must
purchase it separately from M-Files. For more information on M-Files subscriptions, refer to M-Files Product Editions.
Refer to Adobe e-signature plans and pricing for different subscription plans. When you select the subscription plan, note
that the integration also requires Adobe Acrobat Sign APIs to be available. Additionally, read this configuration instruction
carefully because some additional features require a special Adobe Acrobat Sign subscription plan.
The Adobe Acrobat Sign integration supports one or multiple user accounts. When an M-Files user account email matches
an Adobe Acrobat Sign user account email, signature requests are sent on behalf of the specified user. When using separate
emails for M-Files and Adobe Acrobat Sign user accounts, only one Adobe Acrobat Sign account is used for sending the
agreements for signing or other action. Please note that Adobe Acrobat Sign can have agreement count limitations for your
Adobe Acrobat Sign subscription.
To use the integration, the M-Files webhook service must be set up. Refer to Setting Up the M-Files Webhook for the Web
Backend Service.
If you use M-Files Cloud, the service is usually automatically set up. Do the steps in section "Validating the Service" of the
referenced document to check whether the service is available. If it is not available, contact our customer support at
[email protected] to have it enabled.
To use the integration, you must configure the VaultDNSConfig registry setting.
For instructions, refer to Configuring Mappings Between Incoming Connections and Vaults in the M-Files user guide.
This section tells you how to set up the integration. After you have completed these steps, you can send documents in
M-Files to Adobe Acrobat Sign for signing or other action.
In M-Files Admin, install the M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign vault application to a vault. For instructions, refer to Installing
and Managing Vault Applications in the M-Files user guide.
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For the vault application changes to take effect, a vault restart is necessary. You can select to restart the vault after the
installation or later. After you have restarted the vault, you can use Windows Event Viewer and the configurations editor for
Adobe Acrobat Sign in M-Files Admin to check for any missing configuration parameters or incorrect configuration.
If you do not have an Adobe Acrobat Sign account, you can create one from M-Files Admin. To do this, you must first create
a service account. To create a service account, see sections Connecting to Adobe Acrobat Sign with an M-Files Subscription
and Registering the Webhook.
If you use your own Adobe Acrobat Sign account, see sections Connecting to Adobe Acrobat Sign with Your Own Account
and Registering the Webhook.
2.2.1 Connecting to Adobe Acrobat Sign with M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign E-Signature Package
If you do not have an Adobe Acrobat Sign account, set up the service account configuration:
1. Open M-Files Admin.
2. Expand Connections to M-Files Servers > Document Vaults.
3. Expand the vault where the vault application is installed.
4. In the left-side tree view, select Configurations.
5. In the gray navigation area, select Other Applications > M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign.
6. Open the Configuration tab.
7. Set Enable M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign E-Signature Package to Yes.
8. Expand Configurations for M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign E-Signature Package.
9. Enter values for the settings.
The mandatory fields that you must set are highlighted in red when they are not set or valid.
For more information on a setting, click the information icon ( ).
10. Click Save.
When you have set up the service account, you can create the Adobe Acrobat Sign Account:
1. In M-Files Admin, go to the settings for M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign.
2. Select the Dashboard tab.
3. In Create Adobe Acrobat Sign Account, click Create Account.
If you have set the necessary information on the Configuration tab, you receive a registration email from Adobe Acrobat
Sign in a couple of minutes. Follow the instructions in the email and finally Authenticate the user on the Dashboard tab in
M-Files Admin.
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2.2.2 Connecting to Adobe Acrobat Sign with Your Own Account
If you already have a suitable Adobe Acrobat Sign account, authenticate the user on the Dashboard tab of the vault
application:
1. Open M-Files Admin.
2. Expand Connections to M-Files Servers > Document Vaults.
3. Expand the vault where the vault application is installed.
4. In the left-side tree view, select Configurations.
5. In the gray navigation area, select Other Applications > M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign.
6. Select the Configuration tab.
7. Set Enable M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign E-Signature Package to No.
8. Click Save.
9. On the Dashboard tab, click Authenticate.
10. Enter your Adobe Acrobat Sign account information and log in.
Before you register the Adobe Acrobat Sign webhook, make sure that these requirements are met:
• Your M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign version is 2.2.116 or later.
• The webhook backend service is set up on the application server.
o If you use M-Files Cloud, the service is usually automatically set up. Do the steps in section "Validating the
Service" of the referenced document to check whether the service is available. If it is not available, contact
our customer support at [email protected] to have it enabled.
• If you use your own Adobe Acrobat Sign account, it must have the Account admin role.
With webhook events from Adobe Acrobat Sign, agreement statuses can be automatically updated to M-Files from Adobe
Acrobat Sign. To register the webhook:
1. In M-Files Admin, go to the settings for M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign.
2. Select the Configuration tab.
3. Expand Webhook for Adobe Acrobat Sign.
4. Specify the settings Webhook Name and M-Files Webhook Endpoint.
For more information on a setting, click the information icon ( ).
The endpoint must be publicly available from the Internet.
By default, the address has the format https://mycompany.cloudvault.m-files.com/webhook.
5. Click Save.
6. Open the Dashboard tab.
7. In Authentication, click Authenticate.
8. When the service account is authenticated, the Register Webhook button is shown in Webhook.
9. In Webhook, click Register Webhook.
The ID of the registered webhook is shown in Webhook.
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2.3 Setting Adobe Acrobat Sign User Accounts for M-Files Login Accounts
M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign integration can send documents using the Adobe Acrobat Sign account of the sender. If the
sender does not have an Adobe Acrobat Sign user account specified, the common integration user account can be used for
sending the documents. You can set Adobe Acrobat Sign user accounts for login accounts in M-Files Admin. For information
on setting the common integration user, see sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2.
To set Adobe Acrobat Sign user accounts for M-Files login accounts:
1. Open M-Files Admin.
2. In the left-side tree view, expand a connection to M-Files Server.
3. In the left-side tree view, click Login Accounts.
4. In the list of login accounts, double-click a login account to open its properties.
5. In the Email field, enter the Adobe Acrobat Sign user account.
Figure 1: Associating Adobe Acrobat Sign user account with M-Files login account in M-Files Admin.
When a vault user whose login account has an Adobe Acrobat Sign account specified sends a document for signing, the
sender will receive notifications about the signing progress. If a valid Adobe Acrobat Sign user account is not associated with
the user's login account, the documents will be sent for signing using the common API integration user account.
This section tells you what metadata elements you must add to the target vault before you can configure the integration.
You import the built-in structure (see section 2.4.1) or create the metadata structure yourself (see sections 2.4.2 to 2.4.5).
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If you select to create the metadata structure manually, create at least the required metadata elements. The integration
automatically sets values to the properties that are marked in the tables that follow with the read-only permission. You must
set the permissions of these properties to allow users to only see them. For instructions, see section 2.4.4.
For details on the necessary M-Files metadata elements and configurations, refer to these pages in the M-Files user guide:
• Property Definitions
• Configuring Workflows
• Workflow States
• Object Types
Instead of creating the metadata structure elements manually, you can import the default content package that contains the
vault structure for the Adobe Acrobat Sign integration. The content package contains all the Adobe Acrobat Sign metadata
elements and an Adobe Acrobat Sign workflow. Especially with vaults that have a simple metadata structure, the import can
save your time and prevent errors. If you want to use existing property definitions and workflows or advanced settings in
your Adobe Acrobat Sign configuration, you must configure them manually (see sections 2.4.2–2.4.5 and 2.5.3).
To import the metadata structure and the workflow for the Adobe Acrobat Sign integration:
1. Open M-Files Admin and go to a vault.
a) Open M-Files Admin.
b) In the left-side tree view, expand a connection to M-Files Server.
c) In the left-side tree view, expand Document Vaults, and then expand a vault.
2. Select Configurations.
3. In the gray navigation area, Expand Other Applications.
4. Select M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign.
5. Optional: To preview the contents of the default content package before the import, on the Dashboard tab, under
Import Metadata Structure and Workflows, click Preview.
Result: A list of metadata elements, workflows, and workflow states, that the content package contains, is opened.
6. On the Dashboard tab, under Import Metadata Structure and Workflows, click Import.
Result: All the property definitions in Table 1 and Table 2 are created with the correct permissions together with
other necessary metadata elements. In addition, an Adobe Acrobat Sign workflow is created. The workflow
configuration is described in Table 3 and Figure 2.
After you have imported the content package, you can configure the Adobe Acrobat Sign Integration. For instructions, refer
to section 2.5. When you configure the integration, ensure that you use the imported metadata elements and workflow.
2.4.2 Defining Configuration Values for the Adobe Acrobat Sign Document
An Adobe Acrobat Sign document represents the document that is sent to Adobe Acrobat Sign for signing or other action. It
is gotten from Adobe Acrobat Sign after it has been signed. If it is a multi-file document, the PDF files in the multi-file
document are sent for signing. The Adobe Acrobat Sign document does not need to have a specific class or object type. The
method described in section 2.4.5 identifies the Adobe Acrobat Sign documents.
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In M-Files Admin, create at least the required metadata elements according to the information in the table that follows. For
instructions, refer to Editing the Vault Metadata Structure in the M-Files user guide. The most important value is Agreement
that links the M-Files object to the Adobe Acrobat Sign object.
Property, Agreement Yes, The reference to a unique Adobe Acrobat Sign agreement. This is used to get 1.0.10
Text Read-only completed documents from Adobe Acrobat Sign. The property is updated in
M-Files when sending documents for signing or other action.
Property, Agreement Yes, The status of the document according to Adobe Acrobat Sign. The property is 1.0.10
Text Status Read-only updated in M-Files when sending and receiving documents for signing or
when canceling the signing process.
Property, Agreement Yes, The timestamp when the last Adobe Acrobat Sign change occurred. The 1.0.10
Timestamp Last Read-only property is updated in M-Files when sending and receiving documents for
Modified signing.
Property, Agreement Yes, The URL to open the document for editing or viewing in Adobe Acrobat Sign. 1.0.10
Multiline URL Read-only
Text
Property, Agreement Yes, Contains the Adobe Acrobat Sign account email for the user who sends the 1.0.10
Text Sender Read-only agreement to the recipients of the document.
Email
Property, Recipients No The references to additional recipient objects. Also used to define recipient 1.0.10
Choose (Additional) signing order (see section 3.5 for instructions on how to set up and use
from list recipient signing order). It is possible to set an unlimited number of
(multi- Recipients properties.
select)
Property, Waiting for No, An automatically updated list of recipients who have not yet completed the 1.0.10
Choose Recipients Read-only signing process. This property works together with the other signing process
from list status properties Completed by Recipients, Declined by Recipients, and Date
(multi- and Time of Completed Signing. To access this information in M-Files, you
select) need to set up and configure property definitions for them all.
Property, Completed No, An automatically updated list of recipients who have completed the signing 1.0.10
Choose by Read-only process. This property works together with the other signing process status
from list Recipients properties Waiting for Recipients, Declined by Recipients, and Date and Time
(multi- of Completed Signing properties. To access this information in M-Files, you
select) need to set up and configure property definitions for them all.
Property, Declined by No, An automatically updated list of recipients who have declined to signing 1.0.10
Choose Recipients Read-only process. This property works together with the other signing process status
from list properties Waiting for Recipients, Completed by Recipients, and Date and
(multi- Time of Completed Signing. To access this information in M-Files, you need to
select) set up and configure property definitions for them all.
Property, Waiting for No, Each Recipients property must have a unique Waiting for Recipients property 1.0.10
Choose Recipients Read-only for tracking the signing process status.
from list (Additional)
(multi-
select)
Property, Completed No, Each Recipients property must have a unique Completed by Recipients for 1.0.10
Choose by Read-only tracking the signing process status.
from list Recipients
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TYPE NAME REQUIRED, DESCRIPTION VAULT APP
PERMISSION VERSION
(multi- (Additional)
select)
Property, Declined by No, Each Recipients property must have a unique Declined by Recipients for 1.0.10
Choose Recipients Read-only tracking the signing process status.
from list (Additional)
(multi-
select)
Property, Date and No, The date and time when each recipient completed the signing process. This 1.0.10
Multiline Time of Read-only property works together with the other signing process status properties
Text Completed Waiting for Recipients, Completed by Recipients, and Declined by Recipients
Signing properties. To access this information in M-Files, you need to set up and
configure property definitions for them all.
Property, Disable No When this is set to Yes, the document is sent for signing or other action to all 1.0.10
Boolean Adobe Sign specified recipients simultaneously despite their Recipients property.
Routing
Property, File ID No Multi-line text property for mapping file GUIDs to IDs. The file referring to the 1.0.10
Multiline Mapping document to be sent for recipients. Each document has a unique GUID and
Text ID which can be utilized to resolve vault replication ambiguities. This is only
used if the File GUID for Replication setting is set to Yes. See Table 4.
Property, Email No The email message to be sent to the recipients of the document. This 1.0.10
Text Message property overrides the Default Email Message value in the Adobe Acrobat
Sign configuration. See Table 4.
Property, Email No The email response message received from the recipients of the document. 1.0.10
Text Response
Message
Property, Cancel No The email message to be sent to the recipients of the document as a reason 1.0.10
Multiline Signing for canceling the signing process. This property overrides the Default Cancel
Text Message Signing Message value in the Adobe Acrobat Sign configuration. See Table 4.
Property, Names of No Property for the names of the files that have restricted visibility for some 1.0.10
Text Restricted recipients. Names are separated by commas.
Documents
For example: Proposal.pdf,Contract.pdf
Property, Password No The password required to get access to the document in Adobe Acrobat Sign. 1.0.10
Text The value of this property is set automatically after the document has been
sent for signing or other action if one or more recipients have the Password
Recipient Authentication Method enabled and the sender has not manually
set the password. See Table 4.
Property, CC Emails No Multi-line text property for CC emails to which a copy of the document is 1.0.10
Multiline sent. A notification is sent to the CC emails when the document is sent for
Text signing or other action and also when the document is completed.
Property, Show No When this is set to Yes, the CC recipients can see files that are set to be 1.0.10
Boolean Restricted restricted.
Documents
to CC
Table 1: The property configuration values for the Adobe Acrobat Sign document.
Recipients is a property of the Adobe Acrobat Sign document that is defined as described in section 2.4.2. In M-Files Admin,
create new metadata elements or select existing elements according to the information in the table that follows. For
instructions, refer to Editing the Vault Metadata Structure in the M-Files user guide.
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TYPE NAME REQUIRED, DESCRIPTION VAULT APP
PERMISSION VERSION
Property, Name Yes, The name of the recipient. The name property needs to be one of 1.0.10
Text Read-only the properties of the recipient object type. The value of this
property is sent to Adobe Acrobat Sign as the name of the
recipient.
Property, Email Yes, The email address of the recipient. The email property needs to be 1.0.10
Text Read-only one of the properties of the recipient object type. Adobe Acrobat
Sign sends signature or other action requests to the email address
entered as the value of this property.
Property, Country No Property for the recipient country code. The country code property 1.1.0
Text Code needs to be one of the properties of the recipient object type.
When the Phone Recipient Authentication Method is enabled for
these recipients, Adobe Acrobat Sign sends a five digit code to the
specified mobile phone number, including the country code.
Property, Phone No Property for the recipient phone number. The phone number 1.1.0
Text Number property needs to be one of the properties of the recipient object
type. When the Phone Recipient Authentication Method is enabled
for these recipients, Adobe Acrobat Sign sends a five digit code to
the specified mobile phone number.
In most cases, it makes sense to use an existing metadata element as the recipient reference, such as Contact Person, and to
make sure that it has the properties described in the table above. The recipient object represents the person who signs the
document or completes other action when the document is sent to Adobe Acrobat Sign. The name and email address of the
recipient are used for communicating with Adobe Acrobat Sign and for identifying the recipient. It is necessary to define
proper permissions for the recipient object.
Note: Incorrect permissions allow users to get access to the object and, for example, change the Email property
value. This way, an outside user can get access to the documents. For more information, refer to Object
Permissions in the M-Files user guide.
It is possible to define multiple Recipients properties for an Adobe Acrobat Sign signing process as described in Table 1. The
multiple Recipients properties can be of different object types. The use of multiple Recipients properties also enables using
routing for recipient signing order (see section 3.5).
To define additional Recipients properties for an Adobe Acrobat Sign signing process, it is necessary to define the
corresponding Name and Email properties for the additional properties using the same method as described in Table 2.
Thus, there can be multiple Name and Email properties that can then be associated to different Recipients properties in the
integration configuration as described in section 2.5.
When the document is sent for signing or gotten from Adobe Acrobat Sign after the signing is complete, The Adobe Acrobat
Sign integration automatically sets values to some of the properties. These are marked in Table 1 and Table 2 with the read-
only permission. You must set the permissions of these properties to allow users to only see them.
Note: Incorrect permissions can cause users to break the integration functionality for a specific object
accidentally or on purpose.
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To do this:
1. Open M-Files Admin and go to a vault.
a) Open M-Files Admin.
b) In the left-side tree view, expand a connection to M-Files Server.
c) In the left-side tree view, expand Document Vaults, and then expand a vault.
2. Still in the left-side tree view, expand Metadata Structure (Flat View) and then select Property Definitions.
3. Double-click the property definition whose permissions you must edit.
4. Go to the Permissions tab.
5. From the Users and user groups list, select All internal and external users.
6. Select the Allow checkbox of See this property. Unselect all other checkboxes.
7. Click OK.
8. Repeat the steps 3 to 7 until you have set the correct permissions for all automatically filled properties.
M-Files Adobe Acrobat Sign Integration is set up using workflows. The validity of the configuration values is checked during
system startup and the results are shown in in the configuration in M-Files Admin as well as in Windows Event Viewer. It is
not possible to use the Adobe Acrobat Sign integration before all the mandatory configuration values are correctly specified
and no errors occur. The validity is also checked every time the configuration is changed even when the vault is online. Thus,
there is no need to restart the vault for the changes to take effect.
The documents that are to be sent to Adobe Acrobat Sign for signing or other action need to be in the Adobe Acrobat Sign
workflow. Create a new workflow or edit an existing workflow according to the information in the table that follows.
Workflow Sign with Adobe No default. Any alias can be set. The workflow set for the documents 1.0.10
Acrobat Sign For example: that are to be signed.
AdobeSign.Workflow.Default
Workflow Unsigned No default. Any alias can be set. The workflow state for indicating that 1.0.10
state For example: the document is unsigned.
AdobeSign.State.Unsigned
Workflow Sent for Editing No default. Any alias can be set. The workflow state for indicating that 1.0.10
state For example: the document has been sent for
(optional) AdobeSign.State.Authoring signing.
Workflow Sent for Signing No default. Any alias can be set. The workflow state for indicating that 1.0.10
state For example: the document has been sent for
AdobeSign.State.SentForSigning signing.
Workflow Signed No default. Any alias can be set. The workflow state for indicating that 1.0.10
state For example: AdobeSign.State.Signed the document has been signed.
Workflow Canceled No default. Any alias can be set. The workflow state for indicating that 1.0.10
state For example: the signing process has been
AdobeSign.State.Canceled canceled.
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Workflow State transition from No default. Any alias can be set. The state transition from the 1.0.10
state Unsigned to Sent for For example: Unsigned state to the Sent for Editing
transition Editing AdobeSign.Unsigned.Editing state.
(optional)
Workflow State transition from No default. Any alias can be set. The state transition from the Sent for 1.0.10
state Sent for Editing to For example: Editing state to the Sent for Signing
transition Sent for Signing AdobeSign.Authoring.SentForSigning state.
(optional)
Workflow State transition from No default. Any alias can be set. The state transition from the Sent for 1.0.10
state Sent for Editing to For example: Editing state to the Canceled state.
transition Canceled AdobeSign.Authoring.Canceled
Workflow State transition from No default. Any alias can be set. The state transition from the 1.0.10
state Unsigned to Sent for For example: Unsigned state to the Sent for Signing
transition Signing AdobeSign.Unsigned.SentForSigning state.
Workflow State transition from No default. Any alias can be set. The state transition from the Sent for 1.0.10
state Sent for Signing to For example: Signing state to the Canceled state.
transition Canceled AdobeSign.SentForSigning.Canceled
Set the workflow to allow state transitions as displayed in the sample workflow in Figure 2. Documents are initially in the
Unsigned state. When you change the status to Sent for Signing or Sent for Editing (see section 3.6.1 and 3.6.2), the
documents are sent to Adobe Acrobat Sign for the signing process. When the signing process is completed, the vault
application moves the documents to the Signed state. If recipients refuse to do the requested action or the signing process
is canceled, the documents are moved to the Unsigned state.
Figure 2: States and state transitions in the Adobe Acrobat Sign workflow.
You can have multiple Adobe Acrobat Sign workflows and use them for different document classes. It is also possible to edit
an existing class-specific workflow to trigger the Adobe Acrobat Sign process.
Additional workflows are defined in the same way as the default one (see Table 3). However, you must define different
states and state transitions with aliases that differ from those of other configured Adobe Acrobat Sign workflows. You must
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also add at least one Recipients property to every workflow with their Name and Email properties. Properties for Recipients
are configured as part of the workflow configurations as described in section 2.5.
To change the state icons of the workflow states, open the contents of the Workflow States value list. For detailed
instruction, refer to Adding Values to a Value List in the M-Files user guide.
2.5 Setting Up the Adobe Acrobat Sign Integration Configuration in M-Files Admin
When you have set up the vault structure, you need to set configuration values in M-Files Admin to take Adobe Acrobat Sign
integration into use. To do this, vault administrator credentials are necessary. Specify at least all the mandatory
configuration values that are highlighted in red in the M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign configuration.
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d) In Recipient Name Property and Recipient Email Property, set the name and email that corresponds to the
selected Recipients property.
For more information, see section 2.4.3.
e) Optional: To use the authentication method Phone for these recipients, in the Recipient Country Code
Property and Recipient Phone Number Property, set the country code and phone number that corresponds to
the selected Recipients property.
For more information, see section 2.4.3.
f) Optional: To allow or restrict the visibility of some sent files for these recipients, expand Recipients
Configurations and modify the Show Restricted Documents value.
The default value is No. For more information, see section 3.4.
g) Optional: To specify a recipient role for these recipients, expand Recipients Configurations and modify the
Recipient Role value.
The default recipient role is Signer. For example, you can have approver recipients who are not required to sign
or interact with any fields of the document. For more information, refer to Allow various recipient roles.
h) Optional: To specify an authentication method that these recipients must use to get access to the document in
Adobe Acrobat Sign, expand Recipients Configurations and edit the Recipient Authentication Method value.
The default authentication method is Email. For more information, refer to Second factor method options in
Use identity authentication methods.
i) Optional: Repeat step 9 to add another recipients property to the workflow.
You can use the same Recipients property only once in the workflow configuration.
10. Optional: Repeat the steps 8 to 9 to add additional workflow configurations.
You can use the same workflow only in one workflow configuration.
11. Optional: Edit or specify the logging configuration and the advanced configurations. For instructions, see sections
from 2.5.2 to 2.5.3.
12. Click Save.
If you get an error status, click the Local and Server tabs at the bottom of the page and see the lines presented with a
red status symbol. Edit and save the configuration according to the error messages until there are no errors.
M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign uses M-Files Vault Application Logging framework for logging. This means that log entries are
written to a separate logging target instead of the Windows event log. The logging target is specified in the integration
configuration. By default, logging is disabled.
To configure logging:
For more information about logging framework, refer to this section in M-Files Developer Portal.
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2.5.2 Setting Advanced Configurations (Optional)
To customize the Adobe Acrobat Sign integration user experience or enable advanced features, access the Advanced
Configurations in the M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign configuration. See the table and edit the values that you want.
Default Email Message String "Please sign this The default email message to be sent to the recipients to 1.0.10
document" request signature or other action. This is used in the email
message that Adobe Acrobat Sign sends to recipients.
Default Cancel Signing String "Adobe Sign The default email message to be sent to the recipients if the 1.0.10
Message signing process has signing process is canceled.
been canceled."
Include Summary Boolean True If true, the summary document that is received from Adobe 1.0.10
Document Acrobat Sign is stored.
Default Summary String "Summary" The default name of the summary document that is received 1.0.10
Document Name from Adobe Acrobat Sign. You cannot send files with this name
for signing or other action.
Fetch Signed Boolean True If true, the status of the signing process is checked periodically 1.0.10
Documents from the Adobe Acrobat Sign, and the documents are fetched
when they are completed by the recipients.
Status Checking Interval Number 20 The interval in minutes for checking status changes from 1.0.10
Adobe Acrobat Sign.
Write Debug Boolean False If true, debug information is written to the Windows event log. 1.0.10
Information
File GUID for Boolean False If true, file GUIDs are used to resolve vault replication 1.0.10
Replication ambiguities by mapping GUIDs to IDs. The file refers to the
document to be sent for signing. Each document has a unique
GUID and ID which can be utilized to resolve vault replication
ambiguities. The mapping is done in the File ID Mapping
property. See Table 1.
Agreement Expiration Boolean True If true, documents that are sent for signing or other action will 1.0.10
Enabled expire after a defined number of days if the signing process is
not completed.
Agreement Expire After Number 60 The number of days after which documents that are sent for 1.0.10
Days signing or other action will expire if they are not signed or
declined.
Use Integration User Boolean True If true, documents are sent for signing or other action with the 1.0.10
Account for Sending Adobe Acrobat Sign common API integration user account, if
the document creator has no Adobe Acrobat Sign account.
Allow Editing Recipients Boolean True If true, recipients can be edited in Adobe Acrobat Sign when 1.1.0
in Adobe Sign documents are sent for editing.
Table 4: Advanced configuration values for the Adobe Acrobat Sign vault application.
To use the optional configuration values (other than Recipients (Additional)) specified in section 2.4.2, access the Advanced
Property Configurations in the M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign configuration. Set the values that you want. By default, the
advanced property configurations are not set.
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If you have created the necessary property definitions, you can configure these advanced property configurations:
• Disable Adobe Sign Routing
• File ID Mapping
• Email Message
• Email Response Message
• Cancel Signing Message
• Names of Restricted Documents
• Date and Time of Completed Signing
• Access Code
• CC Emails
• Show Restricted Documents to CC
You can customize the Adobe Acrobat Sign look and feel for recipients by changing the branding settings of the Adobe
Acrobat Sign Admin account. For more information, refer to these Adobe instructions.
When a document has one or more PDF files and it is in the appropriate Adobe Acrobat Sign workflow with the appropriate
Adobe Acrobat Sign property values, the document can be sent to Adobe Acrobat Sign for signing or other action. The vault
application periodically checks the state of the documents and gets the documents when they have been signed.
This section tells you how to send documents for signing and how to follow the status of the signing process.
To send a document for signing with a standard Adobe Acrobat Sign workflow (see section 2.4.5):
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6. In the Recipients field, enter the recipients to who you want to send the document for signing. The number of
recipients should not be less than the number of possible signature field placeholders in the document.
7. Optional: Add other properties and enter values for them. The available Adobe Acrobat Sign properties depend on
your Adobe Acrobat Sign integration configuration (see section 2.5). For all the advanced Adobe Acrobat Sign
properties, refer to section 2.5.3.
a) To restrict the visibility of the files that are sent for signing, follow the instructions in section 3.4.
b) To disable Adobe Acrobat Sign routing, add the property Disable Adobe Sign routing and set its value to Yes.
For more information, see section 3.5.
8. Optional: Convert the files that you want to send for signing to the PDF format.
If your Adobe Acrobat Sign workflow does this automatically, this step is not necessary.
9. Click the workflow field at the bottom of the metadata card and select an Adobe Acrobat Sign workflow.
Result: The Change State dialog is opened.
10. Complete one of these steps:
a) Enter a comment and click OK to close the Change State dialog.
or
b) Click Cancel to close the Change State dialog.
11. On the metadata card, click Save.
12. Click the workflow status field at the bottom of the metadata card and change the status to Unsigned.
Result: The Change State dialog is opened.
13. Do the steps 10 and 11.
14. Complete one of these steps:
a) To edit the document in Adobe Acrobat Sign before sending it for signing, change the workflow status to Sent
for Editing.
or
b) To send the document directly to signing, change the workflow status to Sent for Signing.
Result: The Change State dialog is opened.
15. Do the steps 10 and 11.
Result: The property values Agreement, Agreement Last Modified, Agreement Status, and Agreement URL are
added to the document metadata.
16. Optional: If the state of the document is Sent for Editing:
a) Click the link in the Agreement URL field.
b) Add the signature fields in Adobe Acrobat Sign.
For more information, refer to Preview and Authoring Experience in the Adobe Acrobat Sign documentation.
c) Optional: If editing recipients in Adobe Acrobat Sign is allowed (see Allow Editing Recipients in Adobe Sign in
Table 4), add or edit recipients as necessary.
d) Click Send.
The specified recipients get an email request to sign the document. Always when recipients have signed the document, the
Adobe Acrobat Sign integration automatically updates the document in M-Files. For more information, see section 3.6.4.
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3.1.1 Email Messages from Adobe Acrobat Sign to the Sender
The sender of the document will get email notifications when the document is reviewed or completed. Most importantly,
the sender gets a message if the email address of a recipient cannot be reached.
When the sender does not have an Adobe Acrobat Sign account, the documents are sent for signing with the common API
integration user account that is defined in the M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign configuration. The integration user will then
get the email notifications. We recommend forwarding these emails to the sender. If you as a sender do not receive these
emails, please contact your Adobe Acrobat Sign administrator.
To get signature fields to your files, there are three options that you can select from.
First, you can use placeholders that the Adobe Acrobat Sign integrations adds automatically to the files. When you send a
document directly for signing (that is, not for editing) and the files does not have signature field placeholders, the Adobe
Acrobat Sign integration adds the necessary signature fields automatically to the end of the file.
Second, you can use Adobe Acrobat Sign Text Tag Guide to ensure that signature fields are in the right place in a file. A
placeholder consists of text that is inserted into a file before it is converted to the PDF format. The lower-left corner of the
placeholder in the file corresponds to the lower-left corner of the placeholder in the Adobe Acrobat Sign user interface.
Note that placeholders can require positional adjustments to existing files. That is why we recommend that you see the
document and confirm the correct position of the placeholders before sending the document to, for example, customers.
Do not add more placeholders than the number of recipients. If the number of recipients exceeds the number of
placeholders, the remaining recipients sign the document freeform in Adobe Acrobat Sign.
As the final option, you can use the Adobe Acrobat Sign authoring environment to add the signature fields. This way,
signature placeholders are not necessary. To use Adobe Acrobat Sign authoring, you must change the document workflow
status to Sent for Editing (see the step 14 in section 3.1).
Before you send a document for signing or other action, it is necessary to convert the files to the PDF format. If you want to
add placeholders to the files, add them before the conversion (see section 3.2). The conversion is required, because Adobe
Acrobat Sign signs only PDF files and M-Files sends only PDF files to Adobe Acrobat Sign for editing or signing. If a multi-file
document also has files in other formats, only PDF files are sent for editing or signing.
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Tip: Add to the Unsigned state the action Convert to PDF. That way, the files are converted to the PDF format
automatically. For more information, refer to Workflow State Actions in the M-Files user guide.
The visibility of files can be limited to specific users. For example, when you send multiple files to multiple recipients, you
can restrict the visibility of some files for specific users. All recipients who are entered under the same Recipients property
are either allowed or not allowed to view restricted files.
The Recipients configurations are found under Workflow Configurations in the Adobe Sign for M-Files configuration in M-
Files Admin. The document visibility settings for recipients are workflow specific. For instructions on allowing a specific
Recipients property to see restricted files, see the step 9 in section 2.5.
To define restricted files that only the allowed recipients can see:
When at least one additional Recipients property is used for an Adobe Acrobat Sign document, the document to be signed is
first only sent to the recipients selected in the first Recipients property. After all these recipients have completed the signing
process, the signature or other action request is sent to all the recipients selected in the second Recipients property. This
continues until the last non-empty Recipients property. The main and additional Recipients properties are identified by
using aliases as instructed in section 2.4.2.
It is important to note that the routing order for Recipients properties is defined based on the order in which they are
configured in the workflow configuration as described in section 2.5.
Note that if more than one Recipients property is used, entering more than one value (that is, recipient) to a Recipients
property is considered as hybrid routing order in Adobe Acrobat Sign. To use hybrid routing order over the integration, it is
necessary to enable it in your Adobe Acrobat Sign account. For more information, refer to these Adobe instructions and this
instructional video.
You can disable routing for recipient signing order by adding a Disable Adobe Sign Routing Boolean property to the
document, and by setting its value to Yes. This ensures that the signature or other action requests are sent to all recipients
chosen from different Recipients property lists at the same time. This option can be useful when additional recipient
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references (see section 2.4.3) are used only to support multiple recipient object types, and the routing functionality is not
necessary.
If the Write Debug Information setting is set to Yes (see section 2.5.2) and the vault is restarted, the vault application writes
information about any additional Recipients properties it has identified to the Windows Event Viewer. It also writes this
information to the Event Viewer every time the workflow configuration is changed in M-Files Admin while the vault is
running.
This section tells you what happens when the state of the document is changed in M-Files or in Adobe Acrobat Sign. When
the signing process is completed, the integration automatically gets the completed documents as it is described in section
3.6.4.
Select the document that you want to send for editing and, on the metadata card, change the Adobe Acrobat Sign workflow
state to Sent for Editing. Save the changes. The document is sent to Adobe Acrobat Sign for editing. This means that you can
edit the signature fields in Adobe Acrobat Sign before sending the document for signing.
Note: To send a document for editing, you must have a valid Adobe Acrobat Sign user account associated with
your M-Files account.
When the document is sent for editing, these actions occur in M-Files:
• The property values for Agreement, Agreement Last Modified, Agreement Status, and Agreement URL are added
to the document metadata.
When the document is sent for editing, these actions occur in Adobe Acrobat Sign:
• The document becomes available in Adobe Acrobat Sign. To access the document in Adobe Acrobat Sign, use the
link in the Agreement URL field.
• Adobe Acrobat Sign sends authoring requests to the sender’s email address.
Select the document that you want to send for recipient action and, on the metadata card, change the Adobe Acrobat Sign
workflow state to Sent for Signing. Save the changes. The recipient role determines what action is required. By default, the
document is sent to Adobe Acrobat Sign for signing. An agreement can be sent for signing even if the agreement was already
sent to Adobe Acrobat Sign for editing (see section 3.6.2).
When the document is sent for signing, these actions occur in M-Files:
• The property values for Agreement, Agreement Last Modified, Agreement Status, and Agreement URL are added
to the document metadata.
When the document is sent for signing, these actions occur in Adobe Acrobat Sign:
• The document becomes available in Adobe Acrobat Sign. To access the document in Adobe Acrobat Sign, use the
link in the Agreement URL field.
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• Adobe Acrobat Sign sends signing requests to the recipients of the document.
After the document has been sent for signing or other action, it is possible to cancel the signing process if all the recipients
have not yet signed the document. Select the document whose signing process you want to cancel and, on the metadata
card, change the workflow state to Canceled. Write a reason for the canceling the process to the Cancel Signing Message
property and save the changes. If you do not enter a message, a default message is used. It can be defined in the Advanced
Configurations in M-Files Admin (see section 2.3.2). As a result, the signing process is canceled, and the cancel signing
message is sent to the recipients. If the Cancel Signing Message property is not filled, the default message is used.
When the signing process is canceled, these actions occur in Adobe Acrobat Sign:
• The state of the document becomes Canceled.
• Cancel signing messages are sent to the recipients of the document.
By default, the Adobe Acrobat Sign vault application checks every 20 minutes the Adobe Acrobat Sign server for changes
made to the documents that are in the Sent for Editing or Sent for Signing workflow states in M-Files. You can adjust the
frequency by changing the value of Status Checking Interval in M-Files Admin (see Table 4). If there are so many documents
in these states that a full search is not possible, a segment-based full search is done after 24 hours to get the status of all the
documents.
When the document state or the state of a recipient changes for a document in Adobe Acrobat Sign, these actions occur in
M-Files:
• A document that has been updated is downloaded from Adobe Acrobat Sign and updated in M-Files. The document
is updated every time a recipient completes the signing process. Note that this takes place only if the property
definitions Waiting for Recipients, Signed by Recipients, Declined by Recipients, and Date and Time of Completed
Signing have been set up and configured (see Table 1).
• A document that has been signed is moved to the Signed state. A document that has been declined or deleted in
Adobe Acrobat Sign is moved to the Unsigned state.
• The Agreement Last Modified and Agreement Status property values are updated in the document metadata.
• Signed versions of the files are added to M-Files.
• The summary document is added to M-Files if Include Summary Document is set to Yes. The summary document is
named according to the Default Summary Document Name setting (see Table 4).
When the document state or the state of a recipient changes for a document in Adobe Acrobat Sign, these actions occur in
Adobe Acrobat Sign:
• Nothing happens. The signing process has already been completed and the status of the document has already
been updated accordingly.
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3.7 Viewing the Number of Available Agreements
If you use the M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign integration with your own Acrobat Sign subscription, refer to
https://helpx.adobe.com/sign/using/transaction-limits.html.
With M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign E-Signature Package, you can see how many agreements you have left on the M-Files
for Adobe Acrobat Sign dashboard:
1. In M-Files Admin, go to the settings for M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign.
2. Select the Dashboard tab.
Result: In Authentication, you can see the number of used and available agreements.
By default, the integration also sends email notifications to the service account when a specific percentage of the signature
package is used (50%, 80%, 90%, and 100%).
1. In M-Files Admin, go to the settings for M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign.
2. Select the Configuration tab.
3. In Configurations for M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign E-Signature Package > Email Address for Notifications, enter
an email address.
To update your subscription, please reach out to your M-Files representative or contact [email protected].
4. Known Issues
Exceptions that occur after a document has been sent to Adobe Acrobat Sign but before the changes have been saved to
M-Files can be challenging. The document has already reached the recipients, but relevant information from Adobe Acrobat
Sign cannot be stored, which enables the document to be retrieved after it has been signed. Most of such errors are
manageable, but script timeout errors can occasionally occur.
Currently, the workaround for these issues is to manually retrieve the Adobe Acrobat Sign agreement ID from the Adobe
Acrobat Sign environment and add it to the Agreement property value of the M-Files object and move it to the Sent for
Editing or Sent for Signing workflow state. Alternatively, you can copy the signed documents can be from Adobe Acrobat
Sign to M-Files and change the workflow state to Signed manually.
Each recipient object must have a unique email address defined. Otherwise, recipient status tracking can be inaccurate.
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5. Change History
2.0 2022/11/11 Added the sections 1.2.5 and 2.2. These sections tell how to use the M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign
E-Signature Package.
2.2 2022/12/02 Added sections 1.2.6 about VaultDNSConfig and 3.7. about viewing the number of agreements. Small
additions to section 2.5. Updated the software requirements. Cloud support is now available.
2.3 2023/01/03 Removed the redundant oAuth configuration instructions. Added section 2.5.1 about configuring logging.
2.4 2023/02/22 Updated sections 1.2.5 and 2.2.3 about the webhook.
6. Reference Documents
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Appendix A: Quick Configuration Guide
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b. File ID Mapping (Text (multi-line))
c. Email Message (Text)
d. Email Response Message (Text)
e. Cancel Signing Message (Text (multi-line))
f. Names of Restricted Documents (Text)
g. Access Code (Text)
h. CC Emails (Text (multi-line))
i. Show Restricted Documents to CC (Boolean)
10. Go to the M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign configuration.
11. Set the Client ID and Client Secret values of your Adobe Acrobat Sign API application.
12. Configure the integration with the properties and workflows you created.
13. Authenticate the common API integration user on the M-Files for Adobe Acrobat Sign dashboard (get a free test
account).
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