Improving and Refactoring the Digital Signature Platform 

The client was searching for a reliable partner that would analyze their existing digital signature platform, deliver recommendations for the optimization and improvement and implement enhancements.

They wanted to know everything regarding this topic – from the legal aspect of digitally signing a document, to the inspection of the leading existing solutions. 

What is a digital signature platform?

Digital signature platform allows you to create an electronic “fingerprint.” By giving users the ability to gather signatures on documents shared electronically, the platform eliminates the need for physical documents to record signatures. One can easily and quickly send documents or messages to anyone, anywhere, at any time.

Digital signature platform facilitates the distribution of legally sensitive documents, after all, documents are secured with encryption, and can only be opened by the recipient.

Platform analysis and discovery

We have formed a small team of developers to conduct the platform analysis, testing and review of the tech stack. We divided the project into two stages: consulting and audit and enhancements implementation.

Gather together those things that change for the same reason, and separate those things that change for different reasons.

Robert C Martin

The client provided our experts with access to their instance for analysis and we also had interview sessions with the administrators and support specialists. It helped us get a clearer picture of the customer’s existing processes and identify areas of improvement. 

Consulting and audit

Primarily, they wanted to enhance the platform and add automation rules to offer better service to their users.  They have chosen our team due to our extensive portfolio of successfully implemented projects and consulting expertise.

We prepared a separate document with audit results, which included inefficiencies we detected and recommendations on how to improve them. Our experts offered improvement recommendations in key areas, such as client/agent experience, processes and tools, and configuration. 

• The detailed specification of the whole electronic signing process 
• The list of the legal requirements in order to implement the platform that would support this
• The set of tools and Java libraries that can be used for the development of the platform 
• The list of the leading existing platforms in this field

Enhancing the digital signature platform

We found out that the customer’s platform was configured intuitively, but with time, it became too complex due to workflows and prevented the delivery of enhanced service. Based on the audit, we worked together with our client to prioritize improvement areas.

WHAT WE DID

Developing microservices

Since the client had the existing microservice architecture, our team has developed a dedicated microservice for handling electronic signatures, which was integrated into the client’s system. This microservice exposed REST API for next operations:

• Uploading of the documents
• Listing of user’s documents
• Preparing document for signing
• Inviting other users to sign the document
• Signing of the document
• Verification of the signatures
• Creating reports of the singing process
• The microservice has used the relational PostgreSQL database and AWS s3 service

Implementing the MVP solution

Following the successful implementation of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) solution, we proceeded to scale up and fully implement the comprehensive solution. This involved expanding the functionalities, enhancing performance, and ensuring seamless integration with existing systems. Our goal was to create a robust and scalable solution capable of meeting the increasing demands of our clients and accommodating future growth. By leveraging the knowledge and insights gained from the MVP phase, we optimized the architecture, streamlined processes, and incorporated additional features to deliver a complete and scalable solution that aligns with our clients’ evolving needs.

Technologies

• Angular 
• Java 
• Spring Framework 
• PostgreSQL
• AWS

Since each microservice runs independently, companies can develop and deploy new features quickly and upgrade older components as new technologies allow them to evolve.

Web products that use microservices can scale as needed, because it is easier to add, remove, or update each microservice.