The Series· No. 61 · Act XVI — Many Hands

By DocuSeller · Published

Assignees
DocuSeller · No. 61

Four people, one document

A closing document needs four people.

The buyer, the seller, the listing agent, and us.

Three of them have never logged into anything we own.

The usual answer is to make them all sign up. Verify an email, pick a password, accept some terms, so that one of them can type one date into one box.

An illustrative assignee key separates the built-in Admin and Purchaser from named Seller and Listing agent parties Who fills what · example keyBuilt inAAdminPPurchaserSSellerLListing agentNamed for this workflow
Two of them came with the software. The other two you typed in this morning.

The listing agent is not going to do that. The listing agent is going to reply "just send me the form".

So on the workflow canvas there is a small key in the corner: who fills what. Admin and Purchaser come with the building. Everything under those you type in yourself. Seller. Listing Agent. Board Treasurer. Whatever this document actually needs, up to twenty of them.

You are not stuck with our idea of who is involved.

Each name gets a color. From then on, every blank you hand to somebody, in any letter or form in that workflow, wears a dot in their color, so you can read who owes what without opening a single field.

Three workflow cards identify each field’s assignee with both a colored initial and a named legend Read the assignee beside each fieldLetterDatePNameSFormAmountAContactLSign-offSignatureSConsentPAAdminPPurchaserSSellerLListing agent
The color is the whole point. You can read the workload from across the room.

When the order runs, the document stops and waits, and you send each named party a link of their own.

An illustrative seller page leaves only the seller’s closing-date and signature fields editable while buyer and property answers remain plain text Seller · example viewSHello, Alex.Buyer: JordanProperty: 14 WillowClosing dateSignature
No account, no password, no "please verify your email". Their name, and their two boxes.

What lands for them is not an account. It is a page with their name on it, the whole document readable, everybody else's answers already sitting there as plain text, and exactly their own blanks open. The boxes that aren't theirs are not theirs to fill.

Four people, one document, nobody gets a password.

Rename a party next month and the orders already out in the world carry on regardless. Delete one that is being used and it tells you which steps and how many fields it is about to empty, before it lets you.

And nothing moves until the last required blank is in. Ours, the buyer's, the seller's, the agent's. One missing date holds the entire package, which is exactly what you want it to do, right up until it is your missing date.

Four named pens accompany one waiting document; Admin, Purchaser, and Seller are finished while the Listing agent’s pen remains capped The last required answer still mattersRequired fields3 of 4 completeWaitingAdminPurchaserSellerListing agent
Three of them are done. The package could not care less.

Next: sending each of those people something to sign, and knowing who you are still waiting on.

#PropTech · #Automation · #DocumentAutomation