Home>Deploy MeSign e-Signature System to Implement Automatic Document and Contract e-Signing

Deploy MeSign e-Signature System to Implement Automatic Document and Contract e-SigningLocal deployment system, docking business system, realize trusted paperless.

1. Demand Analysis

At present, the paperless office almost has been implemented in government agencies and large enterprises. The invoice and various types of documents have already gone paperless, even the signing of paper contracts is rapidly spreading to the signing of electronic contracts. Most countries government is vigorously promoting and popularizing the e-government service for all services, enterprises of all sizes are also building and improving various management systems to be paperless. However, if there is no digital signature for the e-documents or e-contracts, then we cannot guarantee the e-documents are trusted, and cannot guarantee that they haven’t been tampered with or haven’t been counterfeited illegally, then the legal effect of the e-documents and e-contract cannot be guaranteed.

In other words, currently the only thing needs to do for the paperless transformation is to make the paperless trusted and secure. To make the e-documents generated by management systems be trusted, the e-documents should have a digital signature. However, in order to digitally sign the e-documents, users must apply for a PDF signing certificate from a CA and purchase a cryptographic hardware security module (HSM) in accordance with the Adobe technical requirements to ensure the security of the signing certificate, and it is necessary to provide a secure infrastructure for HSM and the corresponding security control measures, etc.

In addition, it also needs the engineers who knows how to generate the HASH of the PDF file to be signed, how to use the signing certificate to sign the HASH, how to call the timestamp service to obtain the timestamp signature that need to purchase the timestamp call service, and how to call the certificate revocation list data to obtain LTV data to ensure the long term validation of the signature and so on. Therefore, it is not an easy task to achieve a digital signature for a trusted paperless of the e-document. This is why you can see too many e-documents don’t have digital signature.

2. MeSign Solution

MeSign App can only be used to manually sign a single document. If enterprise business system have a large number of documents that need to be signed automatically, then enterprise can buy E-sign API to implement its own programming to achieve PDF document digital signature; if the enterprise does not understand PDF programming, it can buy MeSign e-Signing Agent system to automatically call the E-sign API to complete the digital signature of PDF documents, to meet the trusted paperless application requirements of various PDF document digital signatures, such as: external contract signing, internal employee labor contract signing and various PDF documents.

Regardless of whether the user calls the E-sign API programmatically or the e-Signing Agent system calls the E-sign API, the document signing certificate is called on-demand in the cloud, as shown in the left figure below. For users who want to manage the signing certificate locally, users can purchase a MeSign E-signature Box to automatically digitally sign PDF documents locally, as shown in the right figure below.

The E-signature Box (ESB) is a hardware product, an e-signature system with a built-in HSM PCI card, the HSM card is responsible for generating the keypair and store the issued signing certificate securely. The ESB automatically apply for a PDF signing certificate from MeSign CA that it is used for PDF document digital signature, and it not only provides the PDF document digital signature service, but also provides a signature API for business systems to post PDF files to be signed, document signature positioning, e-seal management, user management, log management and certificate management. For the reliability of the e-signature service, it is recommended that users purchase at least two E-signature Box to achieve redundant hot backup.

Users need to realize the digital signature of documents automatically, just need to purchase the MeSign E-signature Box to connect to the business system. The business system is responsible for generating PDF documents to be signed and contracts to be signed, and submitting the PDF files to be signed to the E-signature Box to complete the PDF document digital signature. Other business-related tasks such as document management, contract management, signing approval, etc. are all implemented by the user's business management system.

Please note that users need to purchase the timestamping service after purchasing an E-signature Box. The E-signature Box is responsible for invoking the timestamping service provided by MeSign Cryptographic Infrastructure. MeSign Timestamping Service also include the long-term validation (LTV) data generation service for free to realize the trusted signature time of the document and the long-term validity of the signed document. MeSign Timestamping Service is a supporting service of MeSign E-signature Box, it is not sold separately. It sets a fixed annual fee according to the range of different annual call times.

In short, users can purchase and deploy MeSign E-signature Box to realize the automatic signing of documents and e-contracts, such as various license certifications issued by government departments, issuing government announcements, various notices of public affairs, transcripts and certifications issued by the education department, various bills issued by the public service department, various documents and announcements issued by enterprises, etc., fully implement the trusted paperless application of all electronic documents in all industries.