A sent document is not finished. Knowing where each one stands is most of the value of having a system rather than an email thread.
The seven states
| State | Means |
|---|---|
| Draft | Created, not sent |
| Sent | Delivered, not yet opened |
| Viewed | Opened and not signed |
| Partially signed | Some signers done, others not |
| Signed | Complete |
| Expired | Validity ran out |
| Cancelled | Withdrawn by you |
Sent and viewed are different conversations
This is the distinction worth building a habit around.
Sent and not viewed is an inbox problem. It went to spam, they are away, the address is wrong. The fix is a nudge through another channel.
Viewed and not signed is a document problem. They read it and stopped. Something in it needs discussing, or somebody else has to approve it. Sending another copy will not help; a phone call will.
Most people chase both the same way, and that is why half of their chasing does nothing.
Nothing chases automatically
No escalating emails, no automatic reminders, no sequences going to your customers without somebody deciding.
That is a deliberate choice and occasionally an inconvenient one. The reasoning: an automated chase to a customer is a message from your company that nobody read before it went, and the cost of one landing badly is higher than the cost of somebody clicking a reminder.
Reminders are one click. Use them.
Where to look
All Documents is everything, in every state, and where you go when you know what you are looking for.
Pending Signatures is the working list: everything sent or partially signed. This is the one to open on a Monday.
Verification Log is everything completed, which is the archive and the answer to "did we ever sign this".
The one-minute daily check
Open Pending Signatures. Look at two things only.
Anything sent more than two days ago and never viewed. That is a delivery problem and it needs a different channel.
Anything viewed more than four days ago. That is a decision problem and it needs a person.
Everything else can wait for the weekly pass. Sixty seconds, and it catches both failures while they are still recoverable.
Partially signed
A document waiting on one of three signers sits here, and the row shows who has and has not.
Chase the specific person. The common failure is a general reminder to everybody, which tells two people who already signed that the sender is not paying attention, and gets ignored by the one who has not.
Reminders, used well
A reminder keeps the original link alive rather than issuing a second one, which is why it is the right tool and re-sending is not.
Once, after a few days. Twice at most.
Say something specific. A reminder that repeats the original wording is a reminder that gets treated like the original.
Stop after the second. Beyond that, a document is not waiting on an email, it is waiting on a decision, and the way to move a decision is to talk to somebody.
Cancelling
Withdraws the document and invalidates the links.
Use it whenever something is wrong: a mistake in the terms, the wrong recipient, a deal that changed. Cancel first, then send the corrected version.
Never leave two live versions of an agreement in the world. If the wrong one gets signed, you have a signed contract you did not intend, and unwinding that is a legal problem rather than an administrative one.
Expiry
Expired documents stop working on their own, which is the point of a validity.
An expiry is not a failure. Frequently it is information: a document that expired unopened tells you something about how interested the other side actually was.
Reissue when it is still live, and do not automatically reissue everything that lapses.
Filtering the list
All Documents filters by state, which turns a long list into the specific question you had.
Sent plus viewed is everything outstanding.
Signed is the archive, though the Verification Log is the better route to that.
Cancelled and expired is worth a look monthly. A pattern of expiries usually means the validity is shorter than your customers' real response time.
A weekly pass
Ten minutes, once a week, on Pending Signatures.
Anything not viewed after two days needs a nudge in another channel.
Anything viewed and unsigned after four days needs a conversation, not a reminder.
Anything older than the validity window is either dead or needs reissuing with a phone call attached.
Anything partially signed for over a week is stuck on one named person, and that person needs contacting directly.
Finding a specific document
Two routes, and they suit different starting points.
From the record, when you know the customer. The deal, person or supplier shows its own documents, which is the fastest path and the one to reach for.
From All Documents, when you know the document but not the record. Searchable, filterable by state.
The search box reaches documents too, so typing part of a title from anywhere in the platform will find it.
What happens to a signed document
It stays attached to the record it was generated from, and it appears in the Verification Log.
There is nothing to file and nothing to download for safekeeping. The executed version, its certificate and its timestamp are held together, and the evidence bundle is produced on demand rather than being something you have to have kept.
The numbers worth watching
The reports for this hub carry the two measures that actually describe a signing process.
Cycle time, from sent to signed. It is a better indicator of friction than any survey, and a rise usually means either the document got longer or the approver on the other side changed.
The viewed-to-signed ratio. Falling means the document itself has a problem: a clause people are stopping at, or a length nobody wants to read.
Both are more useful monthly than weekly, and both belong to whoever owns the templates rather than to whoever sends them.
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