Who's who on a document

Every person you add to a workflow gets a role, and the role decides what their link does when they open it. Getting this wrong is the most common cause of a workflow that stalls, or of somebody signing who was only meant to read.

A recipient card in the builder with name, email and phone fields, and a Signer / Viewer toggle at the bottom. — The toggle at the foot of each recipient card is where the role is set.

The four roles at a glance

Role	Signs?	Blocks the workflow?	Costs you
Signer	Yes	Yes: it waits for them	One signature
Viewer	No	No	Nothing
Reviewer	No	Yes: before signing starts	Nothing
Company	Through the people it names	Yes	One per person who signs

Signer

The default, and the only role that produces a signature. They read the document, swipe to confirm, and prove who they are. The workflow is not finished until every signer is done.

Add yourself as a signer if you need to sign your own document: you then sign from inside the app rather than through an emailed link.

Viewer

Gets their own link and can read the document, but has nothing to sign and nothing to approve. Nobody waits for them.

This is the role people reach for last and should reach for first. It is the right answer for the accountant who needs a copy, the colleague who wants to see the final terms, and the second contact at the client who is not the one signing. It costs nothing.

A viewer is not a bcc

They get a proper link and their access is recorded in the audit trail, so you can show that they were given the document, which an email attachment cannot.

Reviewer

Approves or rejects the document before any signing starts. Reviewers are the internal gate: legal reading a contract, finance checking the figures.

The two decisions are not symmetrical, and this catches people out:

Every reviewer has to approve before signers are invited at all.
Any one rejection cancels the entire workflow, immediately, for everybody.

Reviewers cannot ask for changes

There is no comment box: only Approve and Reject. Anyone who wants an amendment rather than an abandonment has to tell you separately, before they click. Worth saying to them in the invitation.

Company

A recipient that is an organisation rather than a person. Whoever opens its link names up to three people to sign on the company's behalf, and each of them then gets their own invitation.

Use it when you are contracting with a business and do not know who has authority to bind it, which is most of the time. The company decides, and both halves of that decision land in the audit trail. See Have a company sign.

Choosing between them

They need to be legally boundSigner. Nothing else creates an obligation.

They just need a copyViewer. Free, recorded, and nobody waits for them.

They need to sign it off internally firstReviewer. Signing does not start until they approve.

It is a business, not a personCompany. They nominate their own signers.

One person, two roles

Somebody can be both a reviewer and a signer on the same document: they get two invitations and act twice, approving first and signing later. Fine when the same person genuinely does both jobs; confusing if you did not intend it.

Can I change someone's role after sending?

No. Roles are fixed once the workflow is out, and so is the person: there is no way to hand a signature to somebody else. If you addressed the wrong person, cancel and send again.

Do viewers and reviewers use up my allowance?

Neither does. Only signatures count, so adding a reviewer to check your work before it goes out is free.

Does a viewer see who signed?

They can open the document. Once everything is complete, everyone involved receives the finished file and its audit trail.