Send multiple documents out in one envelope (API only for now) plus some webhook changes
Published:
If the title hasn’t put you off then you must be here because you currently use our API to manage your Signable account or use our Webhooks to get notified when important events happen on your account. Feel free to read more if you don’t fall into one of these groups, we don’t like to exclude anyone! 🙂
There has been an important change to our API as well as the format of the webhooks that we send to you. Don’t worry, your integrations won’t have broken however to take advantage of these new updates you will need to make a few minor changes to how you process our Webhooks.
Right, getting started then…
Ability to send multiple documents in one envelope (API)
Over the past few months we have been working towards offering the ability for senders to send more than one file (PDF or Word) out per envelope. This feature is one of our most frequently suggested features so we have been hard at work at making it available as soon as possible.
The good news is that you can now send more than one document per envelope via the API. There are no limits to the number of documents you can send out in one envelope so this should make it extremely flexible if you need to send, for example a terms and conditions file along with an actual contract. To do this, just take a look at our Envelope API documentation, in particular the envelope_documents JSON argument you send us. Previously, if you tried sending more than one file, you would have received an error message, so you can just add as many document JSON objects to this array and away you go.
One thing to bear in mind, it isn’t possible to send out multiple documents if a document is based on a template. You have to either pass in the document via document_url or document_file_content.
Phew! Right, and now for the webhook news…
Changes to a few webhook formats
From this morning (Friday 1st May 2015) a few of the webhook formats have changed for any new webhooks that you create. This change has been made to support the multi document feature above and to give you more information via the webhooks. Your existing webhook URL’s will not change, only new webhook URL’s will be sent the new format.
So just to make it clear, your existing webhook URL’s will still receive the old webhook format until 1st July 2015, at which point ALL webhook URL’s will be sent the new format.
The documentation for the webhooks has already been updated along with the ‘Test Webhook’ feature. This allows you to make the minor changes needed to get everything working with the new format.
The following webhooks have changed, with a brief summary of what has changed:
- send-envelope
- All document_ arguments have been removed and replaced with envelope_ related ones
- You are now sent a JSON array of envelope_documents which supports multiple documents per envelope
- signed-envelope
- All document_ arguments have been removed and replaced with envelope_ related ones
- You are now sent a JSON array of envelope_documents which supports multiple documents per envelope
- envelope_download has been added to allow you to download the envelope. If the envelope has one document, this will be a PDF, if it has multiple documents it will be a ZIP containing each document as a PDF
- cancelled-envelope
- All document_ arguments have been removed and replaced with envelope_ related ones
- verify-envelope-widget
- All document_ arguments have been removed and replaced with envelope_ related ones
- You are now sent a JSON array of envelope_documents which supports multiple documents per envelope
- template_id has been removed, you can now grab the document_fingerprint from the envelope_documents array
- signed-envelope-widget
- All document_ arguments have been removed and replaced with envelope_ related ones
- You are now sent a JSON array of envelope_documents which supports multiple documents per envelope
- template_id has been removed, you can now grab the document_fingerprint from the envelope_documents array
I understand that a few changes will need to be made on your side however these changes are necessarily to support a wider rollout of the multi document feature along with some other future features we have planned.