This article is the shortest path from a fresh Agreement and E-Sign subscription to your first completed envelope. A separate article explains the signing-tier choice; the in-product help walks you through field-level decisions.
Before you begin
You need an organisation that is signed up for Agreement and E-Sign, and an administrator who can sign in to the tenant portal as an owner or a legal administrator. If Agreement was not part of signup, an owner can add it from the Billing page.
Step 1: Pick your starting signing tier
Open the Agreements page and choose a default signing tier in Settings. The simple tier suits most internal use. The advanced tier is the usual choice for regulated counterparties. The qualified tier requires a qualified trust service provider to be wired into your tenant first. The chosen default can always be overridden for an individual envelope.
Step 2: Configure identity assurance
For the simple tier no extra configuration is needed; the recipient confirms identity through an email or SMS one-time code. For the advanced and qualified tiers, complete identity assurance in the Security page: choose document-based verification, video verification, or a federated identity provider, and decide which signing tiers require which assurance level.
Step 3: Decide where evidence lives
Open the Compliance page and confirm the retention window for your evidence bundles. The default matches your subscribed plan; you can extend it to meet legal or regulatory needs. The same page lists which sub-processors handle which kind of data so you can sign off on the chain before you start producing live envelopes.
Step 4: Author or import your first template
Open the Templates page inside Agreements and either import a PDF you already use or build a template from scratch in the editor. Mark up the signer fields, the date fields, and any free-text inputs. Save the template; it is now the reusable starting point for every new envelope.
Step 5: Send a test envelope
Open the Envelopes page, choose Compose, attach the template, add yourself as the only recipient, and send. The envelope arrives in your inbox; complete the signing flow end to end. Once finalised, the same page lets you download the completed package, which includes the signed documents, the audit log, the proofs that every step was recorded, and any timestamp tokens.
Where to go next
The Reports page shows turnaround time and completion rate across envelopes. The Connectors page lets you wire a customer-relationship system so that envelope status flows back into your sales records. The Branding page controls the cover page, the email envelopes, and the in-product signing experience.