Capturing a signature in Resco Mobile CRM

Picture this: You receive a package, and the delivery guy asks you to sign for the delivery at the door. Not an unusual situation. Now imagine you can do the same thing with your Mobile CRM application and have your customers sign orders or your employees verify inspections with a simple swipe of a finger.

Resco Mobile CRM client for Microsoft Dynamics CRM (and other back-end systems) supports signatures.

Even though the option to capture a signature has been there for years now, it’s time to re-visit this topic and discover what you can use this electronic form of signatures for.
Starting with the basics…

How does it work

The option to capture a signature can be found already in the default version of the application (the one you’ll see when you download the app). Let’s say you open up a quote and navigate to notes – see the area titled Signature? That’s where it’s at. Just use your finger or a stylus, if you prefer, to ink your signature on the touchscreen.

Signature in Resco Mobile CRM client for Microsoft Dynaimics CRM

You can add a note tab to any type of record, even custom ones. We have also introduced a special Media tab that allows you to limit the

Notes tab to one functionality: photo capturing, or, in our case now, signature only.

Note: You can add as many Media frames (tabs) as you like, each with a different option. So you can have dedicated signature tab, dedicated photo/picture tab, record tab etc.

The signature is then attached to notes and stored as an SVG or a PNG file (you pick which one suits you best) on your CRM server.

Where can you use signatures

A question that immediately pops up in one’s mind is: “Can these signatures be used for legal documents?”

The simple answer is: No. But there are still loads of cases, in which this type of signature is a valid asset: for inspections, routine orders, deliveries, or for verifying a completed service task.

You can also use this tab to quickly scribble diagrams, schemes, or hand-written notes.

Sign when the case is marked as complete

One of the most common scenarios, in which signatures can be used is: Sign when the case is marked as complete.

This is a typical situation, in which a service guy comes to resolve an issue or does an installation or maintenance.

These are usually service activities in CRM (can be custom entities – that does not really matter as technically it makes no difference).

You could just add a signature tab on the form. That’s the easy way out.

But a far nicer option would be to create a rule (business logic), in which you would specify “If case is marked complete (owner changes its status to ‘completed’), then pull out a signature tab. Unless the signature is not saved, do not allow the user to save the case – show a warning message that asks the user to verify the status of the case with a signature.”