DOD Access License Process

NOTE: There is a lot of information below about the structure and process of the digital agreement setup. Much of the information is for initial setup and will not need to be redone for subsequent years. Use CTRL + F to search for the section/function that you want. If you do not find what you need here, reach out to the Ligature team.

 

Submission and Approval Workflow

 

For application submissions and notifications:

  1. Applicant fills out the application form online and submits.
  2. Notifications are sent out
    1. Applicant receives a customized confirmation message on the webpage.
    2. DOD admin receives an email with a PDF of the submitted application.
    3. Applicant receives an email with a PDF of the submitted application
  3. Admin can access and edit all submitted applications on the website backend.
    1. Click FORMS in the left hand navigation
    2. Hover over the form (DOD 2019 Open Site Application) and click ENTRIES
    3. Click the name of any submitted application or VIEW PDF to view the full form
    4. To edit any submission:
      1. Click the submission name
      2. Click the blue EDIT button in the right column
      3. Make edits/adjustments
      4. When finished, click the blue UPDATE button

 

For approval process:

  1. Make approved/declined decisions for applications
  2. Search and/or filter the submissions through the fields above the table.
    1. Sort each table column by clicking on the field name.
    2. Use the STAR next to each site name to indicate approval/denial more readily.
  3. Admin sends bulk emails to applicants to notify them of their status.
    1. Select all applicants to receive notification
      1. Private/State/Federal Building approval
      2. City Building approval
      3. Denial
    2. Select RESEND NOTIFICATIONS in the bulk actions dropdown
    3. Click APPLY
    4. Select the appropriate notification
    5. Click RESEND NOTIFICATIONS
    6. ***Note: Leave the SEND TO field blank
  4. Applicants will receive notification in their inbox
    1. If the application is denied, there is no further action.
    2. If the application is an approved City Site, there is no further action.

 

For approved Private/State/Federal sites:

  1. Applicant clicks the link in the approval email to a confirmation page with the option to upload their Certificate of Insurance
  2. Click GO TO ACCESS LICENSE
  3. Applicant is brought to the appropriate access license (Private, State or Federal based on the “Site Type” selected in their application form) with all information pre-populated
  4. Applicant can e-sign the access license now
  5. If the applicant signs:
    1. Applicant can download or print the PDF right then.
    2. Applicant receives an email notification to download or print the PDF.
    3. Admin is notified via email.
  6. Admin can access documents on the website dashboard.
    1. Click E-SIGNATURES in the left navigation
    2. Click SIGNED to see all completed agreements.

 

If applicant needs access license updated:

  1. To create custom license
    1. Click on E-SIGNATURE in the left navigation of the website dashboard
    2. Click VIEW on the applicable license awaiting signature (to open license in new tab)
    3. Copy all content from “Access License” to just above signature line.
    4. Go back to WordPress tab
    5. Click ADD NEW DOCUMENT
    6. Click TEMPLATE
    7. Click CREATE TEMPLATE
    8. Select 1 signer, Click NEXT STEP
    9. Add document name
    10. Paste license content in text editor
      1. Center headings if desired
    11. Make desired changes to license
    12. In Document Options, check the first 2 boxes
    13. Click ADD TEMPLATE
  2. To send custom license
    1. Under TEMPLATES, hover over the correct title
    2. Click ADD DOCUMENT
    3. Select BASIC DOCUMENT
    4. Confirm the correct document title
    5. Enter Name and Email of the applicant you are sending the access license to.
    6. Update title if desired
    7. Verify the date of license
    8. Scroll to the bottom and click SEND DOCUMENT
  3. If more revisions are needed
    1. Return to the TEMPLATES tab
    2. Hover document and click EDIT
    3. Update document as needed
    4. Repeat steps to send custom license

 

If they want to resend originally agreement with today’s date

  • To create custom license
    1. Click on E-SIGNATURE in the left navigation of the website dashboard
    2. Click VIEW on the applicable license awaiting signature (to open license in new tab)
    3. Copy all content from “Access License” to just above signature line.
    4. Go back to WordPress tab
    5. Click ADD NEW DOCUMENT

 

Updating for a New Year

Ensuring forms and documents are ready

  1. Make updates to the Open Site Application form
    1. You can choose to just update the same form year to year and maintain the connection to the license documents.
    2. Or you can create a duplicate form from the previous year and make the updates here that are needed. (This will likely require more time from the Ligature team to ensure everything is properly connected.)
  2. Update/create all needed confirmations on the Open Site Application Form.
  3. Edit the Stand Alone documents under E-Signature to ensure that all details are updated for the current year.
  4. Test the approval process multiple times for each scenario before pushing out.

Sending current year licenses to sites from previous years

  1. Ensure that all confirmations and licenses are updated for the current year.
  2. If any information for the site has changed in the past year, edit their application (OSA form entry) to reflect these changes.
    1. Find their entry from the previous OSA form that they applied through (i.e. 2019 OSA if they applied last year)
    2. Click EDIT
    3. Make any edits or adjustments
    4. Click UPDATE
  3. On the list of entries, select all applicants to receive notification
  4. Select RESEND NOTIFICATIONS in the bulk actions dropdown
  5. Click APPLY
  6. Select the appropriate notification
  7. Click RESEND NOTIFICATIONS
  8. ***Note: Leave the SEND TO field blank

 

Accessing Certificates of Insurance

Users have the option to upload their Certificate of Insurance when they click the link in their approval email to then go sign the Access License. It is not required to upload the certificate at that time and they’ll be instructed to email the DOD email later, if they choose not to upload it at that time.

Admins will receive an email with the document attached each time a COI is uploaded and you are able to download and save it at that time.

To access the COIs that are uploaded by users on the website backend:

  1. Go to FORMS on the left-hand navigation
  2. Hover over the DOD Approved Applicant Form
  3. Click ENTRIES
  4. Any uploaded document will appear under the CERTIFICATE OF INSURANCE column
  5. Click the document icon to view/download/save

 

E-Signature Terms

Here is a quick rundown of the terms used on the E-Signatures plugin in order to keep it all straight!

  • Awaiting Signature: These documents are any access license that has been sent to an applicant, but has yet to be signed. (NOTE: if you have updated a license in any way and resent it to an applicant, it creates a new document in this list. You can delete the previous version to eliminate confusion)
  • Signed: This is a complete list of all documents that have been signed.
  • Stand Alone: These documents are the standard access licenses.
  • Templates: These are the custom access licenses.

 

Plugins used

  • Gravity Forms — creates forms
  • Gravity PDF — customizable PDFs with option to add data from submitted forms
  • GP Easy Passthrough – connects the information from the application to the access license
    • NOTE: This costs $49/year.
  • WP E-signature — adds legally binding e-signature to end of chosen documents
    • NOTE: This costs $29/year.

 

Setting up a Gravity Form

  • Gravity Forms has great documentation on how to do this. You can reference this article for a variety of questions you may have on setting up a new Gravity Form.

 

Setting up a E-signature document

  1. Click PAGES on the WordPress Dashboard
  2. Click ADD NEW to create a blank page
    1. Add the page title starting with “E-Signature:” so it is easy to tell which pages are being used for this process
      1. i.e. E-Signature: DOD Federal Building
    2. Don’t add anything besides the title
    3. Click UPDATE
  3. Go to E-SIGNATURE in the left hand menu
  4. Click ADD NEW DOCUMENT
  5. Click STAND ALONE
  6. Add the name of the document
    1. i.e. Federal Building Access License
  7. In the large text area add all the content you wish to be in access license
  8. If you wish to insert a field from a form
    1. Click the ‘Add a signer input field’ icon,
    2. Click GRAVITY FORM DATA
    3. Select the form you wish to pull data from (In this case, “DOD 2019 Open Site Application”)
    4. Select the field you wish to insert
    5. Select DISPLAY VALUE
    6. Click ADD TO DOCUMENT
  9. Once the access license is how you would like it to appear, scroll down
  10. Toggle on NOTIFY ME WHEN A SIGNATURE IS ADDED
  11. Toggle on AUTOMATICALLY ADD MY SIGNATURE TO THIS DOCUMENT
  12. Next to DISPLAY ON THIS PAGE, select the blank page you just created starting with E-Signature
  13. Click PUBLISH DOCUMENT

 

 

Connecting an E-signature document to a form

  • NOTE: WP E-Signature creates access licenses immediately on submission of forms. To work around this, are using Easy Passthrough to pass info from the application to a hidden form with all of the applicant info needed for the access license.  
  1. Go to the form you wish to connect the document to (In this case, DOD Approved Applicant Form)
  2. In settings go to WP E-SIGNATURE
  3. Click ADD NEW
  4. WP E-Signature Settings
    1. Signing Logic: set to REDIRECT USER TO CONTRACT/AGREEMENT AFTER SUBMISSION
    2. Select Stand Alone Document: Select the document you are creating this flow for (i.e. the state, private or federal building access licenses created)
    3. Signer Name: select the field that contains the name of the person that will be signing this document
    4. Signer E-mail: select the field that contains the email of the person that will be signing this document
    5. Feed Condition: Check this to send a document based on one of the user’s responses
      • i.e. for the Private Building document, we only want to create this if the ‘Site type’ is set to Private Building.
    6. Signing Reminder Emails: Up to you if you would like to add this section, generally leave blank
  5. Now any time the user submits this form, they will be sent to the access license where the conditions are met.

 

Setting up email notifications

Admins can set up automated notifications for all forms. For the access license process, you will want to set up the following: Submission notification, DOD approval notifications and DOD denial notifications.

  1. Click on FORMS on the left-hand navigation on the dashboard
  2. Select the form that you wish to set notifications for
  3. Click SETTINGS
  4. Click NOTIFICATIONS
  5. Either select the notification to edit or click ADD NEW
  6. Add a NAME that is clear for your team to identify
  7. Enter the email for the recipient
    1. If you wish to send to the applicant
      1. Choose SELECT A FIELD
      2. Choose the form field that you want to pull the email from
    2. If you wish to send to an admin or other person
      1. Choose ENTER EMAIL
      2. Enter in the email of the person(s) you want
  8. Default FROM email is set to the admin, but you can change this if you wish
  9. Enter in desired SUBJECT
  10. Enter in desired MESSAGE
  11. Do NOT check the ATTACHMENTS box.
    1. See how to set up a PDF through Gravity Forms and attach to notifications below.
  12. Click UPDATE NOTIFICATION

 

Viewing and editing submissions

  1. Go to the Forms tab on in the WP admin
  2. Hover over the form you would like to see the entries for, click ENTRIES
  3. To edit a submission
    1. Click on the submission
    2. Click EDIT on the right side
    3. When done editing click UPDATE on the right side

 

Setting up Gravity PDFs

  1. Go to the desired form (In this case, DOD 2019 Open Site Application)
  2. Under settings go to PDF
  3. Click ADD NEW
  4. In the general tab, add NAME (name of notification) and Filename (what the PDFs will be named)
    1. NOTE: for the filename field, you can add form fields to dynamically name the PDFs by clicking on this symbol,
  5. If you are attaching the PDF to an email notification, in the Notifications field, add the appropriate notification
  6. Go to the APPEARANCE and TEMPLATE tabs for style changes if desired.
  7. Leave everything as is under the ADVANCED tab

 

Setting up Easy Passthrough data

  1. In order to pass through the input information to the e-signature document, you need to create another form.
    1. Go to FORMS
    2. Click ADD NEW
    3. Create a clear title to distinguish from application form (in this case, “DOD Approved Applicant Form”)
    4. Add all the questions/fields that you want to show up in the agreement document as “Hidden” questions.
      1. This ensures that they applicant doesn’t have to see/confirm these again since they already entered them.
    5. Include the option field to upload the COI
  2. Go to the form you wish to pull the data INTO (In this case, DOD Approved Applicant Form)
  3. Under settings, go to Easy Passthrough
  4. Click ADD NEW or click a previously created configuration
  5. Select the Source Form or the form you wish to full the data FROM (In this case, DOD 2019 Open Site Application)
  6. Under the TARGET FORM FIELD column, select the appropriate  TARGET FORM FIELD next to the corresponding SOURCE FORM FIELD
  7. When you have selected all the fields you desire, click UPDATE SETTINGS
  8. Finally, you need to create a page for this form to live.
    1. Go to PAGES
    2. Create a clear title to distinguish from other pages (in this case, “Approved DOD Applicants”)
    3. Add TITLE and any explanatory descriptions
    4. Add the FORM to this page
    5. Click PUBLISH

 

Restrictions for Access Licenses

  • Signature block only have a single field, so Name/Title/Company have to be combined. It cannot be set up to have all of these fields showing separately.