View a signing's audit trail

It is important to be able to keep an eye on the progress of your signing after you have sent it out to the signing participants. Thankfully, the SmartMLS Sign platform has an easy to access, comprehensive audit log that keeps track of everything that happens to the signing once you click the Send Signing button.

For instance, if it is taking an unusually long time for you to receive the completed document back, you can easily dive into the audit trail and see who has (or has not) signed the document yet. With this level of oversight, it is easy to stay on top of things and make sure the signing is completed in a timely fashion.

When you are on the SmartMLS Sign dashboard, locate the desired signing and click the View Details icon on the right side of the screen:

You will then see the following screen:

1. The top section, Created By, provides information about the origins of the signing- who created it, when it was created, who sent it out (this information could differ from the creator if an assistant was working on behalf of an agent, for instance), the last time the signing was revised, etc.
   
   
2. The next section, Stages, shows the participants (signers) of the signing. You can quickly confirm their names, email addresses, role (seller, buyer, etc.) and important dates, such as when they were sent the signing and the date/time when they most recently took action within the signing. If there are multiple stages, they will be separated and grouped accordingly.
   
   
3. In the middle of the screen, between the Created By and Stages sections, there are two tabs: Signing Details and Audit Trail- Chronology View:

• • Signing Details, which is what is displayed on the image above, provides summary information about the signing. This is the default screen that appears when you click the View Details icon from the dashboard.
    The vast majority of this section is there to provide information about the participants (email addresses, phone numbers) and timestamps of when they were sent the signing and the last time they took action within the signing. If you notice their email address is incorrect, you can click the Edit icon to update it.
    
    
  • Audit Trail- Chronology View is where you find the detailed chronological information about the signing. 

After clicking the Audit Trail tab, the bottom half of the screen will change and the summary information about the stages and signers will be replaced by a detailed timeline (in chronological order) of every event for this signing:

Pro tip: By default, the most recent activity appears at the bottom of the list. If you would like to see the most recent activity at the top of the section (so yo don't have to scroll to the bottom), just click the word Date at the top of the column- that allows you to sort on the date/timestamp column.

The audit information includes:

• When signing invitations were sent.
• When signing invitations were delivered.
• When/how the document was opened (desktop, mobile, etc.).
• When the invitation link was clicked.
• When the acknowledgement/terms of use were accepted.
• When the participant signed the document.
• When the signed document was sent back to the initiator (the person who created the signing).
• If/when reminder emails have been sent to participants who have not performed their tasks within the predetermined timeframe.

If your signing includes multiple participants, all of this information is captured for each of them.

The Audit Trail can be very helpful in making sure that all participants have received the document so they can perform their assigned tasks and keep things moving in a timely and orderly manner. 

The Audit Trail can also alert you to issues that could delay the signing or cause other downstream problems. For instance, if you see that one particular signer has repeatedly been sent reminders but has not yet opened or signed the document, it could alert you to a typo in their email address (which originates in their contact record). Or it might prompt you to reach out to them to see if their email got caught up in their spam/junk filter. Little things like this could delay your signing or even prevent the signing from happening altogether, possibly jeopardizing the transaction.

We want to make it as seamless as possible for you to create a signing and gather the required signatures and keep your transaction moving in the right direction. If the signing is not happening as quickly as you think it should, the Audit Trail is a great place to go to spot potential issues.