We Got Groups

Today was a big day for us at Middlepost. We launched a major new feature set for Business and Enterprise Edition customers: Middlepost Groups.

Middlepost Groups provides your organization with the following benefits:

• Access - Give your employees access to all documents and forms they'll need to get their job done. Manage their access rights in a hierarchical organization structure.
• Central - All documents are now stored in central group repositories making it easy for people to find and re-use common documents.
• Visibility - Get live updates and see what people are working on, and see the status of all your organizations documents. Nothing can slip through the cracks.
• Communication - Get your teams talking. Now they have a way to discuss the documents that they are working on.
• Speed - Cut down all the email, meetings, and floating documents. Eliminate time wasted faxing, scanning and printing. Save time and increase your companies work flow with a simple team based system.

And now for the fun stuff, here is a review of the features along with some screenshots for your viewing pleasure.

Group Feed

Every Group has a feed that keeps everyone up to date with what is going on. Similar to the personal Home page feed, but it covers all activity for every member of the group.

Group Forms and Document Library

Create QuickForms and/or upload your organizations documents into a group repository. A Document Space can be created in one click from the Group Forms and Documents list, ready to send out for signature.

Active Documents

All active documents in a group can be seen from the group page by the group members.

Subgroups

The Groups structure is hierarchical and allows an unlimited number of sub groups. Create groups for each department, location, or any way you see fit. Members are granted access to specific groups in the hierarchy providing a powerful document management access system.

 

People and Roles

Each group member is given a role in the group that allows them to perform different actions. Normal, Editor, or Administrator.

Central Accounting

One bill for all employees.

All Wrapped in a Single Location

Manage your entire group in a clean, rich, ajaxified interface.

Is it Safe to use a Scanned Signature to Sign a Document?

Someone asked us today why they should use Middlepost Docs instead of copying and pasting their scanned signature into a document. This is a very good question. And here is why you should NOT use scanned signatures.

1. Big personal security risk making you an easy target for fraud.
1. Using a scanned signature is a major security risk. If you send someone a signed document with your scanned signature, they will then have a copy of your signature and now can use that signature to sign documents as you. If you are only using an image of your signature to verify yourself, you are asking for trouble.
2. Storing an image of your signature on your computer is also a liability if someone gains access to your computer.
2. One off solutions are time consuming and a bad business practice.
1. The time spent getting your signature, adding it to signature lines, saving it, and then attaching it to an email is inefficient and not a solid business practice for any company. It is much better to use a scalable and more efficient solution.
2. Most people do not have a scanned signature on their computer to use so if you send someone a document for a signature, they will be unable to sign it electronically.
3. There is no easy way to manage all the documents when you do it through email. Especially in a business scenario where many people are involved, not just in each document, but in managing all of the documents.
4. Signed documents are generally very important and should be stored/archived for many years. Therefore you will need a long term storage system so you can pull up that document 5 years from now.
3. Not possible with un-editable files like PDF.
1. You can only paste your signature image into editable documents like a Microsoft Word document or OpenOffice. File such as Adobe PDF are un-editable and will not work using this method.
4. No Third Party Verification
1. There is no third party verification when using a scanned signature so there is no bullet-proof way to find out exactly when or who signed the document.

As you can see, there are many reasons you should not rely on a scanned signature for electronic documents. The most important point being that it makes you vulnerable to fraud and identity theft. And you can't just go change the way you write your signature after someone gets their hands on it.

All of these problems are resolved if you use an online signature service like Middlepost Docs.