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Document policies: signing window, reminders and forwarding

Set the signing window, reminder cadence and forwarding rule once, and every document you send afterwards starts from those values.

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The Work policies card in Document eSign settings showing the signer forwarding, signing window and reminder controls

Your workspace carries a set of sending defaults, and every new document starts from them: how long signers have, whether they get chased automatically, and whether they can hand their turn to someone else. They live under Settings > Policies & audit, in the Work policies card. Each one saves the moment you change it.

Who can do this

Workspace admins. Forwarding, reminders and the audit controls need Growth or above. The default signing window works on every plan.

Set the defaults

  1. Open Settings, then the Policies & audit tab.

  2. In Work policies, find the Document sending policies row. Indented beneath it, Allow signers to forward decides whether a recipient can pass their signing turn to a different person. Off keeps the request with whoever you addressed it to.

  3. Set Default signing window, the second row under Document sending policies, to the number of days signers get. Clear the box and it reads "never", so documents stay open until someone acts on them.

    The Work policies card with the default signing window field highlighted

  4. Under Signing reminders, leave Manually nudge the signers to sign on if you want the Remind button available on document pages. Turning it off hides that button for everyone.

  5. Switch on Automatic reminders & schedule, the second row under Signing reminders, to chase pending signers without touching anything. A small panel appears underneath: set how many reminders to send, up to a maximum of 4, and pick the gap between them from 12 hours through to 7 days.

    The automatic reminder panel with the count and interval controls

There's no save button. Each switch and dropdown writes straight away and confirms with a "Changes saved" toast, while the two number boxes save when you click out of them. A save that fails snaps the card back to its last good values and tells you why.

What happens next

Compose a document and the review step already reflects your choices. Expiry is pre-filled with the workspace signing window, and Auto-remind carries the cadence line, for example "Email pending signers every 3 days, up to 3 reminders". Both stay editable per document.

Turn workspace auto-reminders off and the Auto-remind row disappears from the review step entirely, because there is nothing left to opt into. Turn the manual nudge off and Remind stops appearing next to recipients on the document page.

Existing documents aren't touched. A document copies the workspace settings the moment it's created. A policy change never rewrites something already sitting with a signer.

If something goes wrong

  • A coral warning sits under the reminder panel and the change won't stick. Your reminder schedule runs past the signing window, so the final reminder would land after the document expired. Shorten the cadence or extend the window and the whole card saves.

    The reminder panel showing the coral cadence warning about the last reminder firing after the signing window

  • The count box will not take the number you typed. The cap is 4, as the label beside the box says. Anything higher comes back as a save error, so pick 1, 2, 3 or 4.

  • A switch stays visible but won't move. That control needs a higher plan, and a coral Upgrade chip sits next to the Work policies card title. Clicking the switch opens a panel naming the plan you need.

  • You can't find the tab. Policies & audit is admin-only, under the Administration heading in the settings sidebar. Managers and members don't see it.

  • Reminders stopped after a few days. Each recipient gets the configured number and no more. Send further nudges by hand from the document page.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

How many automatic reminders can one document send?

Four is the ceiling. The count box is capped at 4, as the label beside it says, and a new workspace starts at 3. Each recipient who has not signed gets that many nudges at your chosen interval, then the document goes quiet until you chase it yourself with the Remind button on the document page.

What intervals can I pick between reminders?

The dropdown offers six values and no custom option. They read 12 hours, 24 hours (1 day), 48 hours (2 days), 72 hours (3 days), 96 hours (4 days), and 7 days. Nothing in between. New workspaces start on 72 hours (3 days), which spreads three reminders across most of a working fortnight.

Does changing a policy affect documents I already sent?

No. A document takes a copy of the workspace defaults at the moment it is created, so anything already in flight keeps the signing window and reminder settings it was sent with. Change a policy today and the next document you compose picks it up.

Why is there a warning under the reminder cadence?

Because the last reminder would fire after the document has already expired, so nobody would ever receive it. The warning names both numbers and holds the save until you fix the clash. Lower the count or interval, or give signers a longer signing window.

Can I leave documents open forever?

Yes. Clear the signing window box and it shows the word never, which means no document inherits an expiry date. Senders can still switch expiry on for a single document from the review step, so an open-ended default does not stop you capping one contract.

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