Document statuses explained
The six statuses a document can hold, what moves it from one to the next, the separate status each recipient carries, and why Scheduled is not on the list.
A document holds exactly one of six statuses at any moment: Draft, In progress, Signed, Declined, Cancelled or Expired. Each recipient on that document carries a status of their own, which is what tells you who the envelope is actually waiting on.
The six document statuses
| Status | What it means | What puts it there |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Built but never sent. Private to whoever created it. | Saving anything in the send wizard, or booking a send time for later. |
| In progress | Sent, and at least one signature is still outstanding. | Clicking Send for signature, or a scheduled send firing at its booked time. |
| Signed | Everyone signed. The sealed PDF and the audit trail are ready. | The last active signer completing. Self-signed documents land here directly. |
| Declined | A signer refused. Terminal for everybody on the envelope. | One signer choosing to decline, whatever the other signers have done. |
| Cancelled | The sender stopped it. No further signatures accepted. | Cancel envelope on the document page or the row menu. |
| Expired | The signing window ran out with signatures still missing. | The expiry date passing while the document is still in progress. |
Three of those are terminal. Nothing moves out of Signed, Declined or Expired, and a cancelled envelope stays cancelled. Send a fresh document instead.
Scheduled is not a status
A document booked to go out later stays a Draft with a send time attached to it. In the Documents list its badge reads Scheduled in coral, and the name carries a calendar line reading Sends today, Sends tomorrow or Sends in 3 days, with the exact moment on hover. Open it and the page shows a banner reading Scheduled to send with the date and time, alongside Send now, Reschedule and Cancel schedule.
A scheduled draft cannot be edited. Cancel the schedule first, which hands you back an ordinary draft with Edit draft available again.
How a document moves
Sending is the only door out of Draft. From In progress there are four exits, and which one you get depends on what happens first.
Everyone signs, and the document turns Signed once the sealed copy and the audit trail have been produced. That takes a few seconds after the final signature, so a brief gap between the last signer finishing and the badge flipping is normal.
A single decline ends the whole thing. The moment one signer refuses, the envelope turns Declined for everybody, including the people who never opened it.
You cancel, and the envelope turns Cancelled. Everyone still pending gets an email saying so, and the activity feed keeps the full history.
Expired is the exit nobody picks. When the deadline passes with signatures still missing, the envelope expires shortly afterwards and an email goes to you and to every recipient who had not finished.
Recipient statuses
The Signing order section on the document page gives each signer a badge of their own. This is the level that answers "who is holding this up".
| Badge | What it means |
|---|---|
| Waiting | Not their turn yet. Nothing has been emailed to them, so Remind stays grayed out. |
| Requested | The signing request went out and they have not opened it. |
| Viewed | They opened the signing link but have not finished. |
| Signed | Done. The row shows when, in plain language such as Signed 2 hours ago. |
| Declined | They refused, which also ends the document. |
| Forwarded | They handed the request to somebody else, who now holds their place. |
Waiting only appears in numbers on a sequentially routed envelope, where one person holds the turn at a time. On a parallel envelope everybody moves to Requested the moment you send.
Declined and forwarded signers drop out of the progress calculation on the list, which is why a bar can read 100 percent while a signer row shows Forwarded. In-person signers were never emailed a link, so their row says In person and names the colleague hosting the session.
CC recipients sit under a Copied heading with their own badge. It reads Gets a copy while the envelope is live and Notified once it reaches Signed, Declined or Cancelled.
If something goes wrong
- Everyone has signed but the badge still reads In progress. Sealing and the audit trail run right after the final signature. Reload the page in a few seconds.
- A document expired sooner than expected. Expiry runs off the signing window set on the review step, which uses the workspace default unless somebody changed it for that envelope.
- A signer says they never got an email, and their badge reads Waiting. That is exactly right on a sequential envelope. Their turn arrives when the signer ahead of them finishes.
- A colleague's draft is nowhere in your list. Drafts are private to their creator, with no exception for admins.
- The status has not changed since you looked yesterday. Nothing has happened. Open the document and check who is sitting at Requested or Viewed, then send them a reminder.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Scheduled status?
No. A document booked to go out later is a draft with a send time attached, which is why it sits under the Drafts tab rather than a tab of its own. Its row carries a coral Scheduled badge, and the document page shows a banner reading Scheduled to send with the date and time.
What is the difference between Cancelled and Declined?
Cancelled is your doing. You stopped the envelope from the document page and everyone still pending was emailed. Declined is a signer's doing. One person refused, which ends the envelope for everybody, and the document page names who declined and when.
Can an expired document be revived?
No. Expired is terminal, the same as Signed or Declined. Send the document again if you still need the signatures, and give the new envelope a longer signing window on the review step so the deadline suits how long your signers actually take.
Why does a signer show as Waiting rather than Requested?
On a sequentially routed envelope only one signer holds the turn at a time, so everybody behind them sits at Waiting until the person ahead finishes. Nothing has been emailed to a waiting signer yet, which is why the Remind button next to them is grayed out.
What status does a CC recipient have?
CC recipients never sign, so they carry no signing status. The document page shows them under a Copied heading with a badge reading Gets a copy while the envelope is live, which changes to Notified once the document reaches Signed, Declined or Cancelled.
My document says Signed but I cannot download the audit PDF yet.
The sealed PDF and the audit trail are produced together right after the final signature, and the audit download appears the moment its file is ready. Reload the document page after a few seconds. If it still has not appeared, download the signed PDF and try the audit trail again shortly after.
Keep going
Find a document in the Documents list
Status tabs, the owner and team and folder picker, search across names and recipients, what every column means, and the small chips that say where a document came from.
ReadTour of the document page
What the header strip, the three tabs, the signing order list, the PDF viewer and the activity feed each tell you, and how the page changes with the document's state.
ReadReview and send: subject, message, expiry and reminders
The last wizard screen before an envelope goes out. Edit the email subject and message, set a deadline, turn reminders on, then send.
ReadSequential vs parallel signing order
Choose In sequence to route a document one signer at a time, or All at once to email everyone together. Drag rows to set the order.
Read