Create A Powerform In DocuSign

Powerforms allow a form creator to build a form that requires a signature that can be linked to from a website, sent by email, or embedded on a web page. This differs from other DocuSign forms in that you do not need to specify who will be signing a Powerform. This is useful for forms that would previously have been downloaded, filled out, signed, and mailed, faxed, or hand delivered.

Creating a Powerform is a 2-step process, so I will list the instructions for each step separately below.

Step 1 - Create A New Template For This Form

Sign into DocuSign and click on Templates from the navigation menu across the top of the page.
Click the yellow "New" button and then click on "Create Template".
Give your template a descriptive name. For example, if your form is a name change request form, call your template Name Change Request Form.
A description can be added, if desired.
Click on the upload button to upload your form document and select it from your computer
- Alternatively, you can click "get from the cloud" to sign into your Box or Dropbox account to select a form document from there.
In the "Add Recipients" section do not fill out any field or checkbox, other than Role. The role can be any title for who will be filling out this form (i.e., Student).
Change the "Email Subject" line to something that will help you to identify which form was submitted when you receive the submission email. This could be something like "Change Of Name Form Submission" or "Docusign: Change Of Name Form".
You can enter information in the email message but this will only be visible to you in the email when someone submits the form.
Click "Next".
The next screen will be different depending on the document you uploaded.
- Document with fillable fields - You will see a popup asking what you would like to do. You can select "Assign to" and select the Role from the previous screen (recommended), you can choose to keep PDF form data (not recommended), or you can choose to delete the fillable fields and recreate them (why would you want to do that?). If you choose delete data, then the document will be a page without fillable fields and you will need to add the fields using the instructions below.
- Document without fillable fields - Use the field selector on the left side of the page to drag a type of field into your document. The column on the right side of the page allows you to mark fields as required and under the "formatting" tab in the right panel there is an option to hide the text in a text field with asterisks (this is required for certain FERPA protected information, such as GID).
Don't forget to add a signature field block to the signature field on your form!
Once your form has all of the fields you require, click the "Save and Close" button.

Step 2 - Create A Powerform From Your Template

After clicking on the "Save and Close" button you should be taken back to the "Templates" page. Stay on this page, or if you have navigated away from the Templates page, click on Templates from the navigation bar at the top of the page.
Locate your template and click on the arrow to the right of the "Use" button to the right of your form name.
Click "Create Powerform".
If necessary, give your Powerform a name (should be prefilled), email subject (should be prefilled), and instructions for the person filling out the form (this will be prefilled but the instructions won't align with what the signer needs to do, so change this to something like "Please complete all required fields, use the signature button to sign, and submit the form for processing.").
Click the "Create" button.
A window will pop up that allows you to copy the URL to your form or the embed code. The URL is all that is needed to link to a Powerform from our website. Please note: The embed code is not the full code needed to embed the form in a web page on the college website.
You do not need to grab the URL now if you are creating multiple forms, as it is easy to grab the URL whenever it is needed.
Close the URL popup window and click the "Close" button.

Copying The URL For Use On A Separate Website

Login to DocuSign and click on the "Manage" tab at the top of the screen.
On the left side of the page, click on PowerForms.
You should see your PowerForms listed.
Look for the button to the right of your form name, which will say either "Edit" or "Download" and click on the arrow to the right of the button.
Click on "Copy URL".
A popup window will appear, stay on the URL Link tab and click the "Copy" button to copy the URL to your computer's clipboard.