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Reusable Templates

A template is a document plus a field layout plus named roles — "Client", "Provider" — instead of specific people. Build it once, then every future send is just binding real people to those roles. Signing order and CC roles come along for the ride.

What it's for​

Anything you send more than twice: engagement letters, NDAs, onboarding packs, renewal agreements. Templates remove the two slow parts of sending — laying out fields and getting the signing order right — and leave only the part that actually changes, which is who signs.

Dashboard → Document Signing → Templates.

Open Templates →

Key concepts​

  • Role — a named signing slot ("Client"). Fields bind to roles, not to people. At instantiation you assign a real person to each role.
  • Viewer role — a CC role. Emailed copies, never signs, holds no slot.
  • Document set — a template can hold several source files (an MSA, a terms sheet, a payment addendum) merged into one signing package.
  • Instantiation copies, it doesn't link. Creating an envelope from a template clones the document and field layout into a normal draft. Editing the template later never touches envelopes already created from it.

Templates are created by uploading a document under Templates. There's no "save this envelope as a template" action — an existing envelope can't be converted. If you've already sent a document you want to reuse, upload the same file here and lay the fields out once.

How to build a template​

  1. From the Templates list, click New template.
  2. Upload the document and give the template a title — plus a short description, which helps when a team shares dozens of them. The same broad file support applies as for envelopes: PDFs, images, and Office documents, converted to PDF on upload.
  3. Roles — name the signing roles, in the order they should sign. Use the role people will recognise ("Client", "Ops rep"), not a person's name. Mark any role that only needs a copy as a viewer role. Set the default signing order here too — Everyone at once or One at a time — and it is inherited by every envelope made from this template.
  4. Fields — drag fields onto the document exactly as you would on an envelope, assigning each to a role rather than a person. Same toolbox, same undo/redo and copy/paste, same required flags and labels.
  5. Click Save template.

Your template now appears in the Templates list, with its role, field, and document counts.

Use Edit details at any time to rename the template, change its description, or change its default signing order and completion policy.

How to create an envelope from a template​

  1. In the Templates list, click Use template on the one you want.
  2. Give the new envelope a title — typically the template name plus the counterparty, e.g. "Engagement Letter — Northwind".
  3. Assign an email address (and optional name) to each role. Contact autocomplete suggests people you've sent to before.
  4. For any signer role, add extra people to form a client group — any one of them can sign for that role. Viewer roles take a single CC address and no group, since they hold no slot.
  5. Create it. You land on a ready-to-send draft envelope with the field layout, signing order, and CC roles already in place.

From here it's a normal envelope: adjust anything you like, fill any required prefilled content, then Send for signing. See Send a document.

How to manage a multi-document template​

Real agreements are often several files — the master agreement, a terms sheet, an addendum. A template keeps them as a document set: separate source files merged, in order, into one signing package.

Why it works this way: fields anchor to a document and a page within that document, not to a page number in the merged output. So the layout survives changes to the set.

From the template's documents panel you can:

ActionEffect on your field layout
Add a documentAppended to the end. No existing field moves.
Replace a documentSwaps the file, keeps its id and position. Fields on every other document stay exactly where they are; fields on this one that fall past its new last page are dropped.
Reorder documentsA document's fields travel with it.
Rename a documentCosmetic — names the file in the panel.
Remove a documentTakes its fields with it. A template must keep at least one document.

Replace is the one that earns its keep: when Legal sends back an edited MSA, swap the file and every other document in the pack is untouched.

How to share a template with your team​

Templates follow Autessa's standard sharing model. Every template starts private to its owner. Share it with specific teammates, each at their own access level, or company-wide, which gives every member view-and-use access.

LevelWhat it lets a teammate do
READView the template, its roles, and its fields, and create envelopes from it
WRITEEdit the template — fields, roles, documents, and layout
PUBLISHSame as WRITE — templates have no publish step
ADMINShare, unshare, and delete the template

The owner always holds ADMIN implicitly. See access levels for the general model.

READ is the level you want for most of a team: it lets people send from the template without being able to change the layout everyone depends on.