LUXRETECH Blog
Advanced DocuSign -- The Fastest Way To Get A Signature Gets Even Faster
By:
Aaron Wheeler
Posted:
9/16/2009 9:10:45 PM
Tags:
paperless, productivity
I have been a huge fan of DocuSign for quite some time. Our clients can be traveling the world and we get signatures
on contracts swiftly -- oftentimes within minutes -- and this can provide a competitive advantage in certain situations.
The only issue is that setting up the signature process can be somewhat time consuming, especially if there are multiple parties
to a transaction or if several addendums need to be signed.
Fortunately our friends at DocuSign recognized this challenge and came up with two new solutions -- Templates and
Intelligent Document Recognition. Using these new features, I was able to reduce the time for setting up a contract
for signature from 20 minutes to 2 minutes. It is game changing.
Templates allow you to take frequently used documents, such as a real estate purchase agreement, and pre-define all
of the locations on the agreement where the participants need to take action. You specify the "role" of the person signing a particular
section of the document (such as Buyer 1, Buyer 2, Buyer's Agent, Seller 1, Seller 2, etc.) and then drag and drop the
"electronic sticky tabs" on to the agreement for the actions that need to be completed such as "sign", "initial", "optional initial," or "date."
Intelligent Document Recognition (IDR) simplies the process further. You can tell the system to automatically recognize a certain document as
a "real estate purchase contract," for example, by looking for certain attributes in the document. These attributes could be the title of
the document or some other unique identifier. To set it up, you start the IDR tool and draw a box around the sections of the document that
identify what it is. Once you have completely set up the template and IDR, you can upload it to DocuSign and it is ready for use.
How does this all work in practice? I may be write an offer that includes three components - a Residential Purchase Agreement, a
Wood Destorying Pest Addendum, and a Statewide Buyer and Seller Advisory. These documents can accomodate up to two buyers, and there is
a space for the buyer's agent to sign.
First, I set up my templates for three different roles -- Buyer 1, Buyer 1, and Buyer's Agent. I set up
all of the appropriate places to sign/date/initial. Because the California forms have nice titles on them to help identify what they are, I used the IDR Tool to draw a box
around the titles so that the system automatically recognizes the document type.
To prepare the offer for signature, I log into DocuSign
and upload the individual documents that make up the offer. As I upload each document, IDR detects it and asks me a question such as
"Do you want to apply the California Residential Purchase agreement template?" Next, I specify the names/emails for the different parties to
the transaction and press "send". What if I only have one buyer but the template is set up for two buyers? No problem. During the send
process, just click "delete" on Buyer 2 and everything associated with that role will be automatically removed from the document. How cool is that?
It is a little more expensive to use these new features. You will need a DocuSign plan that supports DocuSign Professional, Templates, and IDR.
They have a plan that starts at $35/month which should be more than sufficient for most real estate professionals.
To view a slide slow of screen shots outlining the entire process, from template creation to signing, please click here.
Now Offering The Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist (CLHMS) Course Online
By:
Aaron Wheeler
Posted:
7/20/2009 10:11:40 AM
Tags:
education
I am pleased to announce that we have partnered with The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing to offer their Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist™(CLHMS) course online. It is truly the gold standard. Take your real estate business to the next level by tapping into the desirable luxury home market segment. You don’t have to live the same lifestyle as affluent home buyers and sellers, but you do need special competencies and marketing savvy to succeed
in this special and profitable niche. This fast paced course taught by Laurie Moore-Moore, founder of The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing, will jump start your entry into the upper-tier market or take your already successful luxury real estate practice to a new level of success. This course fulfills all of the training requirements
and is the first step toward earning the international Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist™ designation. Upon course completion you'll receive a free year of membership in The Institute for Luxury Home Marketing plus a free copy of Laurie's book, "Rich
Buyer, Rich Seller: The Real Estate Agents' Updated Guide to Marketing Luxury Homes. The course is $495.
Stop Spam Once And For All With Postini
By:
Aaron Wheeler
Posted:
3/10/2009 10:51:52 AM
Tags:
email, security, spam,
Spam is such a nuisance and dealing with it was taking time away from productive,
business-generating activities. I needed an industrial-strength solution to stop it once
and for all.
That solution is Postini. For $12 per year (per mailbox that I want to have protected),
their Message Security product puts an end to all junk mail. It works by filtering out all
messaging threats including spam and viruses before they each your mailbox.
Set up is a little more complicated than other solutions as you need the ability to modify
your mail server records on the Internet (the technical term is MX records in DNS) to route all incoming mail for your
domain name through the Postini server first. [I offer consulting services to assist anyone
that would like help setting this service up; contact me for
details.] For example, I use Exchange Hosting at Intermedia (read this article for more
information on this). I went into the Domain Manager, added the four MX records per the instructions
provided by Postini, and emailed Intermedia to delete the MX record pointing to their server.
I should note that when you change mail server records, it can take a few days for them to be copied
all throughout the Internet. Postini does offer several testing utilities which will verify that
you set everything up correctly.
You can then set up your mail accounts and customize your settings to control how aggressive
the spam blocking is, list your safe and blocked senders, and more. There is a lot of power
and flexibility in the product. Within a few days of use, there was no more spam in my Inbox or Junk Mail folders in Outlook.
Messages that are blocked are stored in a Quarantine file that you can access through the web.
You can elect to receive a daily email summary of messages that are quarantined, or you can
access them directly through the web interface. If there is
a message that you want to allow to be delivered, you can click on it and it will be delivered
to your inbox.
For more information, visit http://www.google.com/postini.
SugarSync Saves The Day - View & Email Files From Your Mobile Phone
By:
Aaron Wheeler
Posted:
3/4/2009 10:59:50 AM
Tags:
wireless, backup, remote access, iphone
While I was on the train the other day, I received a phone call from the bank letting me know
that I accidentally sent them an unsigned version of a critical document that they needed right away
to move a transaction forward. No document, no deal.
SugarSync literally saved the day. Using the iPhone phone version of their application, I was
able to access my computer files from my phone, view the file to make sure I was sending the
correct one this time, and then email the document to the banker. Crisis avoided.
So what is SugarSync? It is an automatic backup tool that uploads your files, in real time as
you create or change them, to their server. Everything is guarded with industrial-strength
security and encrypted network connections, so your data was never so safe. You can download
and install versions for Windows and Mac.
You can use it to sync multiple computers (so that your files are kept in sync between a desktop and laptop computer,
for example), remotely view and access your files (using a web browser, mobile web browser,
Windows Mobile, or iPhone application available for free from the App Store), send files of any size, and share
files with your team in real time.
There is a 45 day free trial available (no credit card required). Pricing starts at $2.49/month
for a 10GB plan all the way to $24.99/month for a 250GB plan.
For more information and to download the software to start a free trial, visit
http://www.sugarsync.com.
Save On Letterhead With eDocPrinter PDF Pro
By:
Aaron Wheeler
Posted:
3/2/2009 10:46:36 AM
Tags:
paperless, pdf, software, free
I write a cover letter for offers and I print it to letterhead. Given that I email many
offers nowadays, it is not very efficient to have to print the letter then scan it back in
again just to email it. There needs to be a better solution.
Fortunately, there is. I use a program called eDocPrinter PDF Pro to overlay my letterhead
on the document I am printing. eDocPrinter acts as a printer within Windows. Here is how
the process works:
- First, you need to have a scanned PDF version of your letterhead.
- Compose the document in the word processor of your choice, then print it to eDocPrinter.
You will be prompted for a name to save the file as. Enter the file name. There is is an
option at the bottom of the dialog box to overlay a file. Check this box and select your
letterhead PDF file.
- Once you press Save, it will display the resulting PDF file with your document now magically
on letterhead.
We have saved quite a bit on printing expense using this simple solution.
You can download a trial version of the software here. To encourage you to purchase the
full version, it places a watermark on every page of the document starting with the third
page. Hmmm. If you are using it simply for the letterhead solution described above, you may not
need the full version as you will only be generating a PDF for one page.
If you need to upgrade, the full version (removes the watermark) is available for $29.00 and can be ordered here.
[Disclosure: We receive revenue for orders through the link above. Thank you for your support
of LUXRETECH and our on-going research.]
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