# Business Signature
Page contents
# Introduction
Business Signature offers electronic signature capabilities focused on simplifying signing operations in a business context.
B2B relationships present some additional challenges that B2C does not have, such as the need to forward a signing order to the people with the necessary signing rights. In B2B relationships, there is often one single point of contact, but that person is typically not the one who has signing rights. Additionally, sometimes a document has to be signed by more than one person.
With Signature Forwarding, a feature of Business Signature, you can send the signing order to your contact in the company and allow them to forward it to the relevant people.
Business Signature is a separate configuration within the Sign product family. It uses the DocumentService API.
Using Business Signature if you already have an existing customer relationship with Signicat is fairly easy: notify our team and they will make the necessary configuration changes. Afterwards, you only have to refer to that configuration when generating a signing order. Signicat's electronic signature solution and Business Signature can be hosted on the same service.
# Signature Forwarding
Signature Forwarding allows end-users to forward a signing order to someone else.
This feature can be useful in many B2B contexts, where the person who receives a signing order is not always the one who has the relevant signing rights. In order to enable Signature Forwarding, you have to be a user of Business Signature. If you are interested in using Signicat Business Signature with Signature Forwarding, send a request to Signicat at support@signicat.com.
If Signature Forwarding is enabled, the user who receives the signing order will be able to choose between three options:
# Signing scenarios
# 1. Just me
This option means that the person who receives the signing order will be the sole signer. No forwarding will be performed.
# 2. Someone else
In this case, the person who receives the signing order decides to reject it and pass it on to one or more people, who will then be able to sign the document(s) (or forward the signing order to someone else).
# 3. Me and someone else
This represents a situation where the person who receives the signing order will sign the document(s) but will then pass on the signing order so that other people can sign as well.
The first option (Just me) is the default option available for other kinds of signing. The other two are explained below.
# Someone else
If the person who has received the signing order is not the one who is meant to sign it, they can choose to pass it on to someone else. They will be prompted to enter the forwardee's contact details (name, email and phone number) along with a brief message. After this, they will be able to forward the signing order to the other person.
# Me and someone else
In this case, the user will be prompted to sign first. After signing, they will be asked to provide information about the other person who has to sign the document and forward it.
# How to
In order to enable Signature Forwarding, send a request to Signicat at support@signicat.com.
When Signature Forwarding is enabled, you will be able to use one of two configurations every time you send a signing order: One which allows the end-user to forward the signing order and one which does not.
Which configuration you want to use must be specified by adding a configuration sub-element to the task data type, within the request element of the createRequest endpoint in the DocumentService SOAP request. In the configuration sub-element, enter the name of the configuration that you want to use.
Example:
<create-request-request>
<!--more content goes here -->
<request>
<!--more content goes here -->
<task id="task-1">
<!--more content goes here -->
<configuration>forwarding</configuration>
</task>
<!--more content goes here -->
</request>
</create-request-request>
# Business Lookups
Important
We are in the process of making changes to our Business Lookups functionality. As a result, we cannot currently provide the service as described.
The Business Lookups functionality offers the possibility to retrieve business information such as procuration and signing rights from a number of lookup services. The result of the lookup is then attached to the signed PAdES document.
When you create a signing order, a lookup is done automatically on the name you provide (only once per signing order). If you want to perform additional lookups or lookups on several businesses at once, you can do so through the DocumentService API.
The following lookup providers are available for Business Lookups:
| Provider name | Country |
|---|---|
| Bisnode Norge | Norway |
| Bisnode Finland | Finland |
| Bolagsverket | Sweden |
| Virk | Denmark |
Business Lookup providers are treated as separate services. Thus, access to each one is billed separately and you will need to get in touch with us if you want to be able to use a provider that you don't currently have access to.
# How to perform Business Lookups using the DocumentService API
Lookups are performed by adding one or more lookup-task sub-element to the request element of the createRequest endpoint in the DocumentService SOAP request. The lookup-task must then be referenced in one or more packaging tasks.
The basic steps to perform a business lookup are:
- Identify the
providerthat you want to use. - Find the organisation number (
orgnr) of the business you want to look up. - Create a request with a lookup task using these values.
Important
Bear in mind that a lookup service might not return all the fields expected for a given request (for example, if pieces of information are missing for certain businesses).
Missing values are ignored. If all values are missing, the request is considered to have failed.
Example:
<doc:create-request-request>
<!--more content goes here -->
<doc:request>
<!--more content goes here -->
<doc:lookup-task lookup-task-id="lookup-1" provider="bisnode-norway" orgnr="989584022"/>
<!--more content goes here -->
<doc:packaging-task ... >
<!--more content goes here -->
<doc:packaging-task-lookup-document lookup-task-id="lookup-1"/>
</doc:packaging-task>
</doc:request>
<!--more content goes here -->
</doc:create-request-request>
# Attributes of the lookup-task sub-element
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
lookup-task-id | Unique ID for each lookup-task. Used to reference lookup tasks in packaging tasks (see packaging-task-lookup-document in the example above). A packaging task can contain several packaging-task-lookup-documents. |
provider | The name of the lookup provider to be used (e.g. Bisnode Norge). |
orgnr | The identifier of the business the user wants information about. Note that the format may vary depending on the provider (see below). |
# Business identifiers
The table below shows the correspondence of the various lookup services and their associated provider attribute. You will also find links to the page that allows you to search for a business's orngr based on its name and the name of the orgnr in each lookup provider.
| Lookup Service | provider attribute | Name of the orgnr | orgnr search |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bisnode Norge | bisnode-norway | Organisasjonsnummer | Brønnøysundregistrene (opens new window) |
| Bisnode Finland | bisnode-finland | Business ID | YTJ (opens new window) |
| Bolagsverket | bolagsverket-sweden | Organisationsnummer | Bolagsverket (opens new window) |
| Virk | virk-denmark | CVR | Virk (opens new window) |
Important
Swedish organisation numbers are usually in the following format: XXXXXX-XXXX (6 digits and 4 digits, separated by a hyphen). However, they must be entered as 10-digit numbers in DocumentService requests.
# Sample lookup-task elements
This section shows provider-specific examples of lookup tasks. At the bottom, you will also find a complete example using Bolagsverket.
# Bisnode Norge
<doc:lookup-task lookup-task-id="lookup-1" provider="bisnode-norway" orgnr="989584022"/>
# Bisnode Finland
<doc:lookup-task lookup-task-id="lookup-1" provider="bisnode-finland" orgnr="0112038-9"/>
# Bolagsverket
<doc:lookup-task lookup-task-id="lookup-1" provider="bolagsverket-sweden" orgnr="5567615561"/>
# Virk
<doc:lookup-task lookup-task-id="lookup-1" provider="virk-denmark" orgnr="33668821"/>
# Sample lookup using Bolagsverket
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:doc="https://id.signicat.com/definitions/wsdl/Document-v3" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">/
<soapenv:Header/>
<soapenv:Body>
<doc:create-request-request>
<doc:service>signicat</doc:service>
<doc:password>Password123</doc:password>
<!--1 or more repetitions:-->
<doc:request>
<doc:document id="doc-1" xsi:type="doc:archive-document" ref-archive-id="211020191wchribdb7zt7f185x27n60v8iyvpllh6992w2kwt3klsocuum" send-to-archive="true"/>
<!--1 or more repetitions:-->
<doc:task id="task-1">
<!--1 or more repetitions:-->
<doc:document-action type="sign" send-result-to-archive="true">
<doc:document-ref>doc-1</doc:document-ref>
</doc:document-action>
<doc:authentication-based-signature>
<doc:method>dummy-auth</doc:method>
</doc:authentication-based-signature>
<doc:configuration>lookup</doc:configuration>
</doc:task>
<doc:packaging-task packaging-task-id="ptask-1" method="pades-customerlogo" send-to-archive="true">
<doc:packaging-task-document task-id="task-1" document-id="doc-1"/>
<doc:packaging-task-lookup-document lookup-task-id="lookup-test"/>
</doc:packaging-task>
<!--Zero or more repetitions:-->
<doc:lookup-task lookup-task-id="lookup-test" provider="bolagsverket-sweden" orgnr="5567615561"/>
</doc:request>
</doc:create-request-request>
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>