Moving from DocuSign to Maple eSign

Before you start

• Take stock. List your completed agreements, the envelopes still out for signature, your templates and the people who send.
• Watch for purges. If your DocuSign account has a document retention setting, completed or voided envelopes enter a purge queue once that period has passed, shown by a “Purging Soon” label on the Agreements page. Once purged, the documents can no longer be downloaded, although the Certificate of Completion stays available.
• If Canadian hosting is your reason for moving, know that DocuSign also offers a Canadian region for its eSignature service. An account’s region is set when the account is provisioned, so check where yours is before you decide.

Step 1: Export completed documents and certificates

One envelope at a time (DocuSign’s steps):

1. On the Agreements page, find the envelope.
2. If it is completed, click Download. If it is still in progress, open it to the Details view, click the more actions icon and select Download.
3. Choose separate files in a ZIP file, or Combine all PDFs into a single file.

To get the Certificate of Completion on its own, open the envelope’s Details view, click the Download icon and select Certificate of Completion. The full history is under More options, then History. If a combined PDF arrives without the certificate, a DocuSign administrator can turn on Attach certificate of completion to envelope under Signing Settings, Envelope Delivery.

Many envelopes: DocuSign recommends manual downloads for five or fewer envelopes. For larger volumes, it points to:

• DocuSign Retrieve, a separate application installed on a Windows computer, which can download all envelopes from your account to a folder;
• DocuSign Connect, which must be available on your account and only publishes envelopes sent from your account;
• Agreement Actions, which only apply to newly sent envelopes, so they will not export old ones;
• Microsoft Power Automate, or bulk download through Box.

A list of your envelopes: on the Agreements page, select the envelopes, open the menu next to Resend and select Export as CSV. Keep this list as an index of your archive.

Step 2: Export your templates

• The template definitions. DocuSign downloads templates as JSON files in a ZIP file, one at a time from the template actions menu, or several at once from the Templates page. Keep them as a record of your roles, fields and settings. Maple eSign does not import them.
• The documents inside each template. Open the template’s details view and click the document thumbnail in the documents panel to download the PDF. This PDF is what you will rebuild from.

Step 3: Rebuild each template in Maple eSign

1. Start a new template in Maple eSign from the PDF you downloaded.
2. Let field detection propose fields. Field detection proposes fields for five common types: signature, initials, date, text and checkbox. Other field types must be placed by hand.
3. Review every proposed field, and compare the result with your old template, page by page.
4. Set up the signing order (sequential or parallel), reminders and an expiry date.
5. Add what your old template did with other features: conditional fields, signer attachments and signer access codes.
6. Send a test to yourself before you use the template with clients.

Step 4: Invite your team

Maple eSign accounts are set up on request today; there is no self-serve sign-up yet. Once your account is ready, invite your colleagues by email and give each one a role. Walk them through the rebuilt templates before you retire the old ones in DocuSign.

Step 5: Finish what is in flight

Let envelopes that are already out for signature finish in DocuSign, then download them as in Step 1. Send new agreements from Maple eSign.

Step 6: Keep your old records

• Store the PDFs, the Certificates of Completion and the CSV index in your own records system, for as long as your legal and business rules require.
• Open a sample of the exported files to check that the documents and certificates are complete and readable.
• Close the DocuSign account only after your export is complete and checked.