Adobe, Dropbox Ease Access To PDFs, E-Signatures In The CloudAdobe, Dropbox Ease Access To PDFs, E-Signatures In The Cloud

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Adobe is trying to make it easier to authenticate documents online and in the cloud by introducing e-sign capabilities in Document Cloud, including a visual drag-and-drop Workflow Designer, digital signatures (more advanced, secure e-signatures), and enterprise mobility management and signature-capture features.

The company also announced Oct. 13 a partnership with Dropbox that will see the integration of their applications and services on mobile devices, desktop, and the Web for better access to content stored as PDF files.

Digital signatures now comply with advanced signing requirements in the European Union (EU) and regulated industries, which are incorporated into Adobe eSign services.

The eSign Manager DC application is an upgraded mobile app companion for Document Cloud eSign services and Acrobat DC, which lets users e-sign documents and forms, send them for signature, track responses in real-time, and get instant signatures with in-person signing.

The app lets employees use their mobile device camera to take a photo of their handwritten signature once, then use it to sign documents in the future.

In addition, the Signature Sync feature in the app gives employees access to their signature image across the Web, mobile, and desktop devices with automatic synchronization.

Users can also download and view more stored agreements on a mobile device and find the right one using search and filter options.

Document Cloud also boasts advanced workflows that allow users to build custom apps. It provides a Web interface that automates steps in business processes such as onboarding new hires and finalizing a sales contract, before, during, and after signing.

Another capability lets users correct documents in flight, meaning when the wrong document has been sent by mistake, organizations fix and resend the document instead of cancelling and starting over.

Adobe also expanded its partner integrations with Workday, Salesforce, and Ariba to help organizations add e-signing capabilities to their existing human resources (HR), sales, procurement, and legal systems.

Integration with Workday means customers who purchase eSign services have the ability to add e-signatures to more than 400 business processes across the Workday application suite.

The latest eSign services update for Salesforce provides a setup wizard, and automates common tasks like adding product lists to agreements. It supports certificate-based digital signatures.

The eSign services integration with Ariba lets users add multiple signers, define signing order, and verify signers with multi-factor authentication.

[Read more about Adobe Creative Cloud.]

In addition, Adobe is planning Document Cloud data centers in Ireland and Germany by the end of this year, part of a global expansion that will continue through next year.

Through the partnership with Dropbox, customers of Acrobat DC and Acrobat Reader can access and take common actions on over 18 billion PDF files stored in Dropbox directly from within the Adobe apps.

In addition, Dropbox users can open, edit, and save changes to PDF documents in the Adobe apps from the Dropbox website or iOS and Android apps.

Adobe users worldwide can immediately add their Dropbox account in Acrobat DC or Acrobat Reader on desktop. The iOS integrations between Acrobat Reader and Dropbox will be available in the coming months, with Android and Web integrations to follow in 2016.