Document Completion Options
How to choose between REFRACT eSign, plain REFRACT Workflow submission, Guided Documents, and Document Requests depending on who authored the document and what proof of completion the recipient requires.
Enterprise organizations deal with different kinds of documents: ones REFRACT Platform generates itself, ones that only need an acknowledgement or acceptance on record, and official forms authored by a third party (a government agency, a bank, a vendor) whose exact layout isn't yours to change. Each has a different integrity model, so REFRACT Platform gives each one a purpose-built path instead of forcing all of them through a single signing mechanism.
REFRACT eSign
Legally-binding electronic signature for documents REFRACT Platform itself generated - contracts, quotes, purchase orders, invoices, HR documents.
REFRACT Workflow
Structured data collection, validation, approval routing, and a sealed PDF with a full audit trail - no signature required when acknowledgement or acceptance is enough.
Guided Documents
Fills an official third-party PDF's own fields directly from data your workflow already collected, for forms REFRACT ships a verified fill pack for (e.g. IRS Form W-9).
Document Requests
For official forms without a fill pack yet: point the participant at the authoritative form and collect the completed, signed copy back as a secure upload.
Choosing an Approach
| Scenario | Recommended Approach |
|---|---|
| A REFRACT-generated business document needs a legally-binding signature | REFRACT eSign |
| An electronic acknowledgement or acceptance is enough - no signed copy of an external document required | REFRACT Workflow (data collection and submission, no signing step) |
| An official third-party form needs to be filled with data you've already collected, and REFRACT ships a verified fill pack for it | Guided Documents (automatic AcroForm fill) |
| An official third-party form needs a signed copy, but no fill pack exists for it yet | Document Request - link to the source form, participant completes and signs it outside the platform, then uploads the signed copy back |
A Document Request still gets full governance
A Document Request is built on the same attachment field as any other workflow step - it isn't a separate upload mechanism. The upload lands in your own Blob Storage, participates in approval routing, and is covered by the same audit trail as any other step field. See Field Types for the accept and maxSizeMb options available on that field.
Why Purpose-Built Paths, Not One Signing Tool
REFRACT eSign signs a document by re-rendering it from its original .rpkg template and structured data model, injecting the signature as part of that render. That mechanism is what makes it possible to cryptographically verify a signed document, reproduce it, and trace its full lifecycle - and it's exactly why REFRACT eSign is scoped to documents REFRACT Platform itself generated: an externally authored PDF has no REFRACT template behind it, so there's nothing to re-render.
That scoping isn't a gap - it's what the other paths exist to cover:
- No document to sign at all. Most acknowledgement and acceptance scenarios - policy sign-off, an internal checklist, a customer questionnaire - just need the submission itself validated, routed for approval, and sealed with an audit trail. Plain REFRACT Workflow already does this; nothing extra is needed.
- A specific official form is required. When the recipient needs their own form back - not a REFRACT-branded equivalent - Guided Documents fills that form's real fields directly from workflow data wherever REFRACT has built and verified the mapping.
- No fill pack exists yet for that form. A Document Request keeps the same workflow collecting the data, points the participant at the authoritative source document, and takes the signed copy back as an upload - keeping approvals, audit, retention, and delivery on one governed platform even though REFRACT never generated or altered that document's content.
Every path shares the same governance spine: participant authentication, schema validation, approval routing, and an immutable audit record - only the document-handling mechanism changes to match how the document was authored.
See how each path is configured
Guided Documents covers automatic AcroForm fill and field mapping. Workflow Schema Reference covers the attachment field type behind Document Requests and every other step field.
REFRACT Workflow
REFRACT Workflow is a governed multi-step document workflow engine. It orchestrates structured data collection, validation, approval routing, and final PDF sealing, all within your Azure tenant.
Workflow Schema Reference
Complete reference for the REFRACT Workflow YAML schema, covering step definitions, field types, validation rules, and approval routing configuration.