eSignLive releases advanced, comprehensive, electronic signature support for Microsoft InfoPath 2007

Montreal, QC, June 16 2009 - Silanis Technology, the leader in e-signature process management, today announced that is has added support for Microsoft InfoPath 2007 with release 6.0 of ApproveIt Desktop. Designed to work right out of the box, ApproveIt Desktop 6.0 enables organizations to quickly add advanced electronic signature capabilities to their InfoPath forms using a comprehensive and reliable solution trusted by the US Army, US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and hundreds of other organizations. Both government and commercial organizations will immediately benefit from significant reductions in cost, approval cycle-times and errors when processing travel requests, evaluation reports, benefit forms, and other types of forms requiring signatures. “ApproveIt Desktop has been recognized as the leading electronic signature solution for forms and documents,” said Dr. Robert Al-Jaar, Executive Vice-President and Chief Technology Officer at Silanis. “These advanced electronic signature capabilities are now available for InfoPath to enhance the form application’s ease-of-use and data quality, and provide support for more complex business processes.” ApproveIt Desktop combines the security of a digital signature with a robust and advanced set of electronic approval automation features to:

• support complex, multi-person approval processes while ensuring ease-of-use;
• replicate the security and enforceability of hand-signed, paper documents;
• leverage existing systems such as document creation, distribution and storage; and provide an upgrade path to the web and support cross-channel signing processes with external users

Kansas Department of Transportation (KDOT) is the first organization to use ApproveIt Desktop 6.0 to electronically sign InfoPath forms.

Business Requirements

One of the many benefits of ApproveIt Desktop is that it does not force organizations to recreate their existing InfoPath forms or re-engineer their business processes to support common multi-person approval processes. The solution enables support for multiple signatures, sectional signing, form-letter and batch-signing, sequential and out-of-order signing, and authorized changes to be quickly added to existing InfoPath forms. Moreover, ApproveIt Desktop requires a minimal learning curve and ensures high user adoption. Signing icons appear within the InfoPath toolbar enabling users to intuitively ‘click’ to add their electronic signature. An image of each person’s handwritten signature is also secured within the document, thereby replicating the appearance of hand-signed documents, both on-screen and when printed. An electronic signing pad can also be used in customer-facing, point-of-sales applications to further reinforce familiar, hand-signing processes.

Legal Requirements

To mitigate legal risks, ApproveIt Desktop meets all requirements for signing as specified by the American Bar Association. The solution captures a person’s intent to sign a document and permanently binds the consent to InfoPath forms in the form of an electronic signature. The electronic signature travels with the forms at all times, enabling users to save and forward electronic copies of signed form without altering its security or the integrity of the form’s content. If any changes to a form’s content are detected, the electronic signature is visibly invalidated.  Users can also print a hard copy of the signed form for their records.

IT Requirements

ApproveIt Desktop was designed to leverage an organization’s existing IT investments to enable quick deployment, to get them up and running quickly. Electronic signature capabilities can be quickly added to existing InfoPath forms, as well as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and Adobe Acrobat files. Because the solution permanently embeds the electronic signature within documents and forms, they can be securely brought into an organization’s existing workflow, content management and document storage system. To authenticate users, ApproveIt Desktop can be combined with a wide range of user authentication devices, such as a 3rd party PKI system, digital certificates, smart cards and biometrics devices. However, if an organization does not already have these technologies in place, ApproveIt Desktop will create a self-signed digital certificate – the equivalent of a person vouching for their own identity – to reference in signed documents.

Web Upgrade Requirements

Organizations wishing to provide customers, partners and suppliers with the ability to sign documents over the web or in a server-based environment can do so with the assurance that Silanis provides a comprehensive and cross-compatible, enterprise solution.  Sharing the same core, signing engine as its desktop counterpart, ApproveIt Web Server enables regulated documents to be accurately presented, reviewed and signed within a web browser, and without the need for users to download any additional software. Also using the same signing engine, ApproveIt XHMTL Server enables XHTML forms to be electronically completed and approved over a network server.

About Silanis
Silanis Technology is the leading provider of e-signature process management solutions. Some of the world’s largest insurance and financial services companies, major government agencies, integrators and service providers depend on Silanis to accelerate business transactions and reduce costs while improving compliance with legal and regulatory requirements. The company’s electronic signature platform, ApproveIt®, is an enterprise-class e-signature process management solution that transforms paper-based business transactions to all-electronic, web-based processes for e-commerce and e-government.