How Dropbox & Dropbox Sign Integration Can Help Businesses Increase Their Productivity & Efficiency

The emergence of COVID-19 has cultivated a digitalization in today’s businesses operations. The pandemic made it clear that it is time-consuming and inefficient. As a result, during the past two years, the use of electronic signatures and digital documents has increased dramatically.

While the majority of us continue to work remotely, we noticed significant changes in everyone’s desires to be even more productive by using digital documents and e-signature technology. Electronic signatures, usually referred to as e-signatures, are a rapid, simple, and secure method of signing documents. They are ideal for use in delicate contracts and transactions because they are legally binding and simple to verify and authenticate.

Cloud storage is an essential service that every business needs. Being productive in this new world is made easier by a cloud’s ability to store, manage, and act on documents. It can help to streamline the end-to-end processes and improve integrated capabilities inside our business if we pair it with a reliable and secure e-signing solution.

This has highlighted the significance of an e-signing solution and a reliable, secure cloud data storage platform. In light of the growing number of cloud storage and e-signing options available today, let’s explore Dropbox and its e-signing solution powered by Dropbox Sign.

What is Dropbox?

Dropbox Business is a popular cloud-based file storage and collaboration platform designed for the modern workspace. Their file sharing solution allows us to save and share files of any format and access them anywhere, on any device.

Dropbox Business keeps us and our teams in sync by allowing us to securely store documents, manage data access, and collaborate on projects in one location. We can grant teams or individuals the ability to read, comment on, or update content. We will also be notified if someone views, modifies, transfers, or deletes sensitive files.

It provides an incredible suite of storage and sharing features, as well as an online backup service that assures we never lose crucial files. Dropbox’s backup services operate quietly in the background, backing up any new or updated data on our device to its location.

With built-in productivity tools and third-party integration, Dropbox makes collaboration easy. Did you know that according to Okta, there are over 300,000 applications on Dropbox that can enhance the efficiency of our business operations? This ensures that Dropbox can work well with the tools and software that we use on a daily basis.

What is Dropbox Sign?

Dropbox Sign is an electronic signature software that allows companies to send and receive documents for signatories online. It is ideal for signing contracts, insurance documents, and financial agreements.

Their main features include reusable templates, flexible signing, and integration with softwares like Dropbox. These features help our businesses save time and reduce the cost of managing document workflows

Dropbox Sign’s platform for creating, editing and using templates is simple and efficient. For documents that are commonly executed, we can create templates and reuse them to keep our content consistent and it helps to save time in drafting them again.

Dropbox Sign is compatible with a wide range of file types. This includes:

• Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx)
• PDF (.pdf)
• Microsoft Powerpoint (.ppsx, .ppt, .pptx)
• JPEG (.jpg), (.jpeg)
• PNG (.png)
• Microsoft Excel (.xls, .xlsx)
• Text (.txt)
• HTML (.html)
• GIF (.gif)

Dropbox & Dropbox Sign Integration

To help businesses and employees streamline the signature process, Dropbox has made Dropbox Sign the default and free eSignature solution on their platform. With Dropbox Sign embedded right inside Dropbox, users can easily send, securely sign and safely store important documents without ever leaving Dropbox, anytime and anywhere. 

eSignature requests now made easy with the Dropbox and Dropbox Sign integration:

1. To send out signature requests, simply add signers by email address. 
2. Create fields to specify the sections that need to be signed, dated, and more.
3. Choose a Dropbox folder so the signed document is automatically saved and stored safely.
4. There is an audit trail included in every Dropbox document so we can keep track of key activities and the events of the signed document with notifications.

Here are some ways the Dropbox and Dropbox Sign integration can improve the productivity and efficiency of our business: 

Faster Turnaround Times

With the integration between Dropbox Sign and Dropbox, business owners and managers can save time and eliminate the need to wait for signatures on paper sales contracts, purchase orders, and vendor agreements. This integration allows for e-signatures to be obtained and requested in a quick, secure and remote manner.

Documents with e-signatures can be finalized up to 80% faster and according to the Electronic Transactions Act (ETA), these legally-binding signatures are enforceable or admissible. Additionally, changes and amendments will be easier and quicker to make on digital documents.

This integration also eliminates the toggling back and forth between multiple interfaces. Since everything occurs within Dropbox, we can easily keep track of exactly who, what, when, and why changes are being made and get alerted when it’s time to move forward.

According to Harvard, employees switch applications and websites about 350 times between 22 unique ones to execute a supply-chain transaction. Minimizing toggling will boost the team efficiency which in turn, better CRM and output.

With Dropbox Sign, standardized documents templates such as offer letters, leases, terms and conditions sheets, waivers, NDAs, real estate contracts or sales agreements can be created and saved. This helps to save time and effort as the next time we or our team member needs them, they are readily available to be reused.

Seamless Automated Process

Aside from being faster than pen and paper, Dropbox Sign and Dropbox also simplifies the signature process as e-signatures eliminates the cumbersome process of contracts creation, gathering documents, manually sending them out for review, and collecting multiple signatures from different individuals. And this have not account for the extra time taken if somebody makes a mistake and slows down the process

We can quickly convert a contract from a rough draft to a finished, legally binding PDF by using Dropbox and Dropbox Sign. Any desktop or mobile device can be used to quickly sign documents. Moreover, the signed copies are automatically stored back to our pre-designated Dropbox folders.

Additionally, Dropbox Sign offers a dashboard that tracks the status of signature requests and issues reminders. Electronic signatures are kept on schedule with the use of automated reminders, and tracking provides greater visibility into bottlenecks. The dashboard settings also allow us to manage account access for our team members.

Dropbox Sign also includes useful administrative and productivity features. Their drag-and-drop functionality, for example, allows us to properly identify places that require signatures. Another fantastic option is revoking permits or access, which helps us to limit the consequences of back-outs while we process agreements.

Available Anywhere

Another benefit of the Dropbox Sign and Dropbox integration includes the increased accessibility. Our teams can collectively work on the same document, request and submit legally binding papers securely even if they’re working in different locations, from any device without having to worry about them getting lost or taking too long to arrive. 

Furthermore, we can centrally store all of our projects, files, and business documents, which also puts an end to time-consuming paper searching. This ability to get information from anywhere is more important than ever given the current situation and the new normal brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Project teams are constantly on the move as hybrid and remote work become more popular. With the Dropbox and Dropbox Sign integration, there is no need to pause work until we are back at the office or have access to the appropriate computer. Our team might not be in the same location, but our most crucial agreements will.

Lower Costs and Waste

Electronic signatures not only keep the work flowing, but they also reduce our carbon footprint. By removing the need to move papers between locations, getting a signature online contributes to cutting down on paper waste and greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, employing an e-signature workflow cuts down on time spent maintaining physical papers as well as the costs associated with paper and shipping. 

Never Compromising on Security

Frequently, signed documents are attached to emails as PDFs. This has an impact on document security and severely limits a company’s capacity to keep track of audit trails. However, none of their worries about the security of their data are compromised by the Dropbox and Dropbox Sign integration. 

Depending on our preference, documents will continue to be stored in data infrastructures with encryption. Every document stored with Dropbox Sign is protected with numerous layers of security, including SSL encryption and multi-factor authentication, reducing risk and guaranteeing complete control and visibility.

Dropbox Sign also provides an audit trail at the end of the process that includes the names, dates, and locations of the signers of the document. It confirms the legitimacy and verifies the authenticity of every signed document.

Conclusion

Modern businesses rely on Dropbox Sign by Dropbox to speed up document turnaround, improve completion rates, and shorten sales cycles to keep up with advancing business demands. In addition, they benefit by having their contracting process reimagined end-to-end with full transparency and leading security.  

We believe many of the digital changes brought about by the pandemic will remain in place. Managing and signing documents are unlikely to go back to manual processes after the pandemic. E-signatures have become the standard and there’s now a big expectation that this technology is here to stay.

Web Imp is a pre-approved SME Go Digital vendor, and we are a trusted partner of Dropbox and Dropbox Sign Singapore.