Document Tagging

Tagging refers to the process of placing signing designations on documents. Tagging can enhance the signing experience by designating the exact requirements to complete a document, ensuring the document is filled completely and accurately according to your business needs.

However, manual application of tags is a tedious and time-consuming task, especially with high transaction volume and long documents. Additionally, if you’re looking to send out transactions in a zero-touch fashion via API, you’ll need a way to tag documents without human intervention.

Notarize comes with a variety of automated tagging capabilities, depending on your business use case. Read on to figure out the best tagging solution for your business needs.

Document Templates (Business only)

The most simple automated tagging solution, this option allows you to manage standardized document templates all within Notarize. By uploading a PDF, tagging it as desired, and saving it, you can simply reference your business template when creating transactions either via UI or API. This is a great option if your document template does not contain any PII pre-populated on the document. See the Document Templates for Business to get started with your first template!

If your documents come pre-filled with signer information, or if your team would prefer to manage document templates outside the Notarize ecosystem, Document Templates are not recommended. Read on to learn about Notarize's additional automated tagging options that may be more suitable for your needs.

Automated Template Matching

A happy medium between templating and white text tagging, Automated Template Matching uses similarity detection to tag documents based on your existing Document Templates. With this feature enabled on your account, all you have to do is upload documents to transactions. Notarize will tag your document automatically by running a matching algorithm against all the Document Templates in your account. The document will then be tagged based on the template most similar to the uploaded document.

Automated Template Matching is a great no-code solution that provides the ease of template preparation within Notarize, the flexibility for documents pre-filled with PII, and zero-touch template matching, without having to teach your team, or your systems, a new tagging syntax.

To turn on automated template matching on your account, reach out to [email protected].

White Text Tags

White text tagging allows you to tag documents by providing codified tags in the actual content of the document, at the time the document is prepared. The tags will then be automatically placed upon upload into Notarize. See our White Text Tags documentation for more details.

White Text Tags could be the best solution for you in a variety of scenarios.

Document Content Changes Frequently

Let’s say your team is using a Document Template for a Power of Attorney (PoA) document. Let’s say a new version of this PoA is released, in which the header and footer have changed slightly. Someone will then have to go into Notarize and re-upload the new version of the document and also re-apply all the tags.

By white text tagging your PDF, nobody has to worry changing anything in Notarize. Your doc prep team can simply change what needs to be changed, and leave Notarize WTTs in place, and your team can continue to upload documents manually, or they can be uploaded via API, making the handoff seamless.

Documents are Generated Dynamically

Often times, businesses are generating documents programmatically, either in-house or through third-party software. This means documents might look different for every customer, and may even be pre-filled with PII.

Integrating WTTs into your dynamic document generation process is the most surefire way to ensure successful and accurate tagging of your dynamic documents.

Documents Going Multiple Places

We get it - you have hundreds of forms to manage. And you probably need to send those forms to all kinds of places. It can become a hassle to manage document templates in several different tools, so you like to have a focused team who can ensure the quality, legality, and accuracy of document content before shipping them off to signers.

Using White Text Tags allows you to take back control of your documents so that your internal teams can ensure they’re ready to be sent to Notarize, without needing to register and train new team members on using Notarize.

Signing Designations via API

This is the most automated way to place tags on your documents. If your documents are generated programmatically or pre-filled with signer info, or you simply want zero human interference, this is the best option for you. Simply provide the type, the X/Y coordinates, the signer, and dimensions of your designation via the Add Document API endpoint. See our Signing Designations via API quickstart guide for more info.

Note that if you plan to send several types of documents through Notarize, or the document structure could vary greatly with each transaction, your code will need to account for each case to apply the appropriate X/Y coordinates to the designations. Consider looking into white text tags if that is the case.