Most businesses and institutions once had a foundation made up entirely of paper processes that tied every memo, report, paycheck, and signature into an elegantly elaborate, if incomprehensibly Gordian knot of redundancy. Nothing could get done before the right document was, to use the insightful words from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, “...signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public enquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters.”

Back on Earth, UMBC is one of many higher education institutions taking the proverbial sword to the knot of archaic business processes. The Campus Card and Mail Services department has made headway by converting to digital forms for the Departmental Campus Card (DCARD).

The DCARD allows certain staff and faculty to charge their department for work- related expenses such as small food purchases, copier use, pay-for-print services, postal goods and/or small UMBC Bookstore purchases. Assistant Director Drew Belcher says that since most people do not think in terms of back-end verification and auditing, they do not always grasp the financial power the DCARD gives an individual and the steps necessary to ensure it is authorized and utilized properly.

Despite the complex approval process required for DCARD forms, UMBC’s electronic signature and digital workflow vendor, DocuSign, provides a simple, automated solution. IT Support Assistant Kristen Hodges, B.A. ‘14, English Communication and Technology, can create a single template that can be used for many departments. The program’s interface allows her to easily create a signing order and designate each field on the form to a specific individual. Once it is sent, the form is automatically routed to each signer via secure email, eliminating the time once spent transporting forms by hand or mail.

One particularly useful feature of digital forms is the tracking data that the system automatically records. This includes timestamps created every time someone views, edits, or signs a document. This information is critical during an internal or state audit that checks the validity of DCARD expenses. Belcher says he can easily create a document with all of the important data for any particular form and easily share it with third-party overseers in Financial Services.

Moving forward, Campus Card and Mail Services is looking to convert more forms to DocuSign, especially those requiring signatures from off-campus partners. Doing so will, “increase our productivity and allow us to accomplish more during the work day,” says Hodges.

Robust, versatile, and easy to use, digital signature technology empowers administrators to challenge the status quo and use its foundation to build a new process that is faster, smarter, and immune to parody.  

More Info:

• Visit the DocuSign myUMBC Group
• Visit UMBC's FAQ knowledge base

The UMBC Purchasing Card Program, part of the State of Maryland’s p-card program, allows departments to make small purchases (less than $5,000) quickly and easily. Although the adoption of this program reduced the amount of paperwork and processing time required for such purchases, the UMBC Department of Procurement and Strategic Sourcing (Procurement) is still required to strictly enforce the State’s policies and procedures for purchasing cards. This means that each application, agreement, and authorization must follow its own strict approval sequence to include the appropriate department head, as well as approvers from Procurement and Financial Services.

When the approvals were captured on a paper form, the signing process was quite an ordeal. Executive Director of Procurement & Strategic Sourcing Elizabeth Moss regretted the inefficiency and inconvenience of the need for staff to hand carry documents to each signer, often leaving the form to wait among dozens of other forms on the signer’s desk, before finally having each completed form filed away with the hope that it could be located if it was ever needed. The cost of paper and ink for printing all of these forms, when combined with the time spent transporting, storing, and retrieving countless documents, made it apparent that Procurement needed a more efficient solution.

As a result, Procurement turned to DocuSign, the electronic signature and digital workflow platform that UMBCs Division of Information Technology (DoIT) has integrated with the business processes of numerous departments on campus. This automated system eliminates as much excess as possible while simultaneously injecting a modest amount of urgency into the process in order to boost compliance.

DocuSign does more than just create electronic versions of paper forms. It also enables users to create digital envelopes that will travel via secure email along a predetermined signing route. Each signer just clicks on the “View Document” button and is transferred directly to the form, where they are guided through each required field in their portion of the form. Once they have signed, the form is automatically sent to the next signer in the workflow, during which the initiator may track the form as it progresses and view timestamps recorded when each signer viewed and submitted their section. When the form is completed, each signer gets another email allowing them to review the completed document, which can be automatically uploaded to a specified Box cloud folder and sent to a designated Request Tracker queue.

Using this tool, Procurement can fine tune the process to be as efficient as possible. Senders can specify the exact information each signer needs to provide while offering tooltips to clarify each field when necessary. Senders also can always see where the form is in the workflow and send reminders in order to rush a particularly time sensitive form.

“Typically, people don’t immediately sign every paper document as soon as it reaches their desk. Most will wait until they have reached a stopping point with their electronic work to turn to those papers that have accumulated in their inbox. With DocuSign, people are much more likely to approve the form quickly since they can sign it electronically as soon as it reaches them through email, and send it on its way immediately,” Moss explains. “This allows us to promptly act upon the information in whatever way needed by the card holder.”

By taking a sizeable chunk of their purchasing card paperwork out of the process, Procurement has made a big step towards a more streamlined and sustainable workflow for p-cards.

More Info:

·       Visit the DocuSign myUMBC Group

·       Visit UMBC's FAQ knowledge base

Before you start working in an office, it might be hard to believe how much of your workday can be spent sending emails. Even after you’ve gained enough experience to be comfortable drafting professional emails quickly and efficiently, email correspondence can still occupy a significant portion of your time.

Compliance Specialist Whitney Ames is quite the accomplished emailer. When creating Athletic Scholarship agreements for the Division of Student Affairs (DoSA), Ames had to send them individually to over 200 students, many of whom needed reminders and updates to get them to reply. Considering the time-sensitive nature of these forms, in addition to the numerous other tasks that DoSA staff must complete during the same period, it is clear that this system was not ideal for either staff or students. That's why DoSA has prioritized accessibility and quality service as they’ve replaced paper processes with digital workflow.

Working with UMBCs Division of Information Technology (DoIT), DoSA has converted many heavily used paper documents to DocuSign forms that can be signed and submitted electronically. Implemented in numerous departments including Campus Life and Athletics, these digital forms have made life easier for everyone involved. Instead of mailing incoming athletes 15 pages of health and permission forms, Athletics can send them out in a secure email that provides quick, easy access and signing ability on any device. The student athlete can then submit the form electronically, which relieves staff from having to sort and file lots of paper documents as well as scan and upload the document to their electronic medical records.

Assistant Athletic Trainer Kristina Miller says, “DocuSign has streamlined us to the point that our time is now better spent serving the student-athlete instead of dealing with papers everywhere.”

If a student doesn’t respond immediately, DocuSign automatically sends emails reminding them they have a form to sign. The document itself offers instructions and tool tips that tell the signer exactly what they need to know for each field, so DoSA staff do not need to spend a lot of time correcting mistakes. In addition, DocuSign Mobile allows signers to conveniently sign and submit electronic forms directly on their mobile device. DoSA can also track and resend documents when necessary.

According to IT Manager Ken Schreihofer,M.S. ‘11, Information Systems, these tools help meet student expectations of better service, with the first completed forms submitted within minutes of being sent out and total compliance approaching 100%.

Whitney Ames agrees, saying, “the most impressive change has been in our response rate. This year, we sent reminder emails to fewer than 10 students and most aid agreements were returned nearly a month ahead of their normal timeline.”

E-signature technology provides a robust platform with an easy-to-learn interface that can create solutions for numerous administrative concerns. Between DocuSign and Request Tracker (RT), Schreihofer says that DoSA is now running low on paper forms. With the help of automated digital workflows, any department can make gains in sensible efficiency and productivity.

More Info:

• Visit the DocuSign myUMBC Group

• Visit UMBC's FAQ knowledge base