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DocuSign in the College of Sciences

Eligibility

Staff in the College of Sciences’ administrative units, department heads and departmental business officers (DBO) are eligible for College of Sciences DocuSign accounts. Department heads or administrative unit heads can request accounts for other employees.

Who Needs An Account

Only people who need to create documents for signature require a DocuSign account. You do not need a DocuSign account to simply sign a document that was sent to you through DocuSign.

How To Request An Account

Your departmental business officer or administrative unit head can request a DocuSign account on your behalf by sending a request to help@sciences.ncsu.edu that includes the department or unit’s name, the Unity ID and the full name of the person who needs the account.

Learning to Use DocuSign

If you have a College of Sciences DocuSign account, you have access to free online training through DocuSign University.

When you log into DocuSign University, you may be prompted to choose your account type. You should choose the option that includes “eSignature”.

If you scroll down on the main page, you will see links to learning paths, which are collections of short courses. Everyone should start with the Get Started Sending With eSignature learning path. You can choose other relevant courses and learning paths afterwards.

Costs

DocuSign charges based on the number of envelopes that an account holder sends to others for signature. An envelope is a document (or set of documents) that is sent from DocuSign at one time to any number of people. The cost is currently $2.73 per envelope.

The College of Sciences has an overall limit of 6,500 envelopes per year, which covers our normal business use. If we use more, there are additional costs.

If you have a DocuSign account and use DocuSign to simply sign a document, without creating a workflow for additional signatures, there is no cost and it does not count against the 6,500 envelopes.  

Currently, envelope costs are borne by the College.

Other eSignature Options

The Office of General Counsel at NC State approved several eSignature options. OIT provides information about these options here.

If you need a legally binding signature from anyone outside the university, you must use DocuSign.

If you need eSignatures only for internal approvals, we recommend that you consider using a Google Form that is set to collect email addresses. You can also use Adobe Acrobat Reader to sign a document, provided it is either sent to or from an NC State Gmail account or stored in NC State’s Google Drive.

Both of these methods are approved by Office of General Counsel for university business if the only people who need to sign are NC State employees or students. Using these methods for informal internal approvals conserves DocuSign envelopes.

Getting Help

If you need help using DocuSign, you can contact their customer support here.