Digital Signatures for Microsoft SharePoint

The CoSign Central digital signature platform integrates with SharePoint out-of-the-box and enhances SharePoint’s capabilities by enabling it to provide compliant signature-based approvals within workflows (which SharePoint calls “Collect Signatures” workflow).

CoSign provides digital certificate and key management from a secure network-attached appliance, plus centralized control over authorized signers (through Microsoft Active Directory or other directory services).  When implemented with SharePoint, CoSign features appear as a natural part of the familiar SharePoint and Microsoft Office interface. This enables signature-based approval processes to remain paperless while complying with regulations, expediting processes, and cutting costs. Because CoSign for SharePoint allows digital signing via the SharePoint interface, it permits users to leverage their pre-existing investment in SharePoint in order to digitally sign various Enterprise, B2B and B2C content.

CoSign for SharePoint adds the ability to sign PDF’s, Lists and Libraries within the SharePoint environment without requiring the user to check items out and back in.

CoSign for SharePoint is an advanced SharePoint extension that enables users to seamlessly and digitally sign SharePoint List Items and documents hosted in SharePoint Document Libraries (including PDFs) via the SharePoint web-based interface. CoSign for SharePoint has been developed with WSS3.0 SDK, which is compatible with both WSS3.0 and MOSS environments and enables out-of-the-box deployments with SharePoint.

A key functionality of the digital signatures offered within SharePoint is signing documentation that must be signed by multiple signers or approvers. This process is handled in the following way: The originator of the document checks the document into the Document Library and sends an email to the additional individuals with a link to the document. The recipients of the email can then access and sign the document via their web browser within the SharePoint environment, without the need to check it out to a local PC. Another typical digital signature need in the SharePoint environment is for approvals of SharePoint Lists. CoSign for SharePoint allows the content of a List Item to be approved and sealed by multiple signers, all within the standard SharePoint User Interface. Each signature includes various relevant details such as the signer's name, certificate, signature date and time, and reason for signing.

Click here for a flash demo of the CoSign for SharePoint module’s advanced capabilities. 

Deployed in a SharePoint Farm, CoSign usage in SharePoint Lists is activated for the specific lists that require digital signature capabilities. Once CoSign usage in SharePoint Lists is activated for a specific List, the administrator specifies which columns in the List are covered by the digital signature. Additionally, this feature expands the standard List Item menu with additional entries enabling List users to sign List Items with digital signatures. Clicking these entries redirects the user to the custom CoSign for SharePoint web pages (Signing page and Verify & Review page). The signing page requests the user's username/password and uses this to permit the signer’s credentials (key and certificate) to be applied in the signing operation. The Verify & Review page allows the user to review all signatures and signature details (including the signer’s certificate, the signing reason, the validity of the signature, and more).

CoSign usage in Document Libraries also contains a functionality that automatically validates document signatures and indicates the signature status without requiring the reviewer to open the document (i.e., review status: signature is valid, not valid, or document not signed).

For more in-depth technical info, click here to download the CoSign for SharePoint User Guide.

• Full integration with SharePoint. Cosign is the most widely-deployed SharePoint-integrated digital signature solution on the market, with dozens of SharePoint installations and thousands of users so far.
  CoSign for SharePoint provides all of the benefits of the CoSign Central infrastructure (i.e., workflow integration, signer control, enhanced security, and external trust) within a SharePoint environment.
• Extends SharePoint’s capabilities by allowing PDF, list and signing within the SharePoint environment.
• Legal compliance. Cosign digital signatures are compliant to the rigorous standards of the most tightly regulated industries and geographies. See CoSign digital signature legal compliance information.
• Support for sequential approval processes. CoSign allows multiple signatures to be placed on a document (one after another) while ensuring document integrity. This is useful in scenarios that require a series of approvers and an audit trail.
• Authorized Signer Control. CoSign leverages existing user management systems, such as Microsoft® Active Directory®, for control over signer authorizations (new employees are added and employees leaving the organization are removed from the authorized signer list with a simple click). CoSign ensures quick deployment and minimal ongoing IT management requirements, translating into enhanced security and a very low total cost of ownership.
• Enabling of Advanced External-facing Applications. CoSign Central enables advanced external-facing applications such as clientless-customer or partner-facing web applications, point-of-sale applications, and eInvoicing applications. Digital signatures can even enable new business models such as Software as Service (SaaS).