Overview

The Agreement Express Connector (“AEX Connector”) is an incredibly powerful desktop integration tool used to connect your favourite software applications directly to Agreement Express. Using the connector you can send any document directly from the native application to Agreement Express simply by installing the AEX Connector on your computer.

The AEX Connector not only allows you to send documents from any application, such as Microsoft Word, Excel or Adobe Acrobat, but it also allows you to access your Microsoft Outlook address book. You can also assemble packages of documents, from any number of software applications, and even overlay existing Agreement Express templates to the documents that you are sending.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say you had created a contract for a customer in Microsoft Word and you wanted to send it to them using Agreement Express.  Rather than saving the document to your hard disk, if you’ve installed the AEX Connector, you can simply hit PRINT from MS Word and then select the AEX Connector from list of available printers. The AEX Connector will then launch and allow you to write your email, select the company you want to publish from, and will allow you to add people to the email list directly from your Outlook mail client.

If you were assembling a package of documents you can do this too. Let’s say that you had an Excel spreadsheet open that you wanted to include, as well as a PDF Welcome Letter that you had saved to your computer that your marketing department had requested you also include. With the AEX Connector you can add these documents to the package, and indicate if they should be included as documents requiring signature or if they should just be attached to the email.

The AEX Connector can also be used to speed up repetitive tasks where creating a strict template isn’t possible. Say for example you have a real estate system that generates a generic contract pre-populated with the listing information such as lot number, purchasers name and so forth, but you don’t have control over this system to allow you to insert field tags or signature block tags, but the overall structure of the document doesn’t change. Rather than having to manually place all the fields and signature blocks each time you can create a template that contains the fields and signature placeholders in Agreement Express, and then “overlay” this template automatically each time you send the document through the AEX Connector.

The AEX Connector allows you to build packages in which each document uses a different overlay template, and even allows you to send to a pre-approval list of recipients before documents before sending the completed package to the intended audience. Our professional services team can help you configure the AEX Connector if it seems a bit daunting, but you’ll soon see it is a very powerful way to integrate with your desktop.

Installation

1. Navigate to the folder you downloaded the file to and double-click on the Agreement Express Connector installer icon (AEX Connector). If a Windows security warning pops up, select “Run”.
2. The setup screen opens to a welcome page. Click the Next button.
3. If you’d like, you can change the default “printer” name of the Connector. This will be the name that appears in your list of printers. Click next when done.
4. Select where you would like to install the Connector and click next.
5. Choose the name of the folder that will appear in your Windows Start Menu and select next.
6. The installation will now begin. Once the Connector is installed, click on the Finish button to close setup.

First Time Setup

The first time you use the Connector, you will need to link the Connector with your agreement express account. When you print an agreement to the Connector (select File -> Print and choose the Connector from the list of printers), go to Options -> Agreement Express Settings from the Connector window. Check that the server address is correct. The port number should be set to 443.

Canadian/EU/UK server:            https://agreementexpress.net
            US server:                                https://us.agreementexpress.net

Enter in your agreement express email address and password. If you have a proxy server in use for your network you can enter in the details as well. If you are unsure of the details, you can click on the “Get Setup from Internet Explorer’ button to retrieve the information or contact your network administrator for more information.

Click the Save button and you are now ready to publish agreements.

Using the Connector

To send a document to the Agreement Express Connector, you select File -> Print from the menu in Microsoft Word (or any other program you wish). Select the AEX Connector from the list of printers in the drop-down at the top of the window and click print. Although you cannot select to print multiple copies, you can print in either portrait or landscape view and select what pages to print.

The Connector window appears as follows;

Title: This defaults to the name of the document you printed. Change this to the file name you want the recipient(s) to see when signing.
Overlay: You can select a template from Agreement Express and have the connector copy the fields and signature blocks from that template onto the document you are printing.
Company: This field will automatically be filled in with your company.  If you belong to more than one, it will default to “Select a Company”.
Set Shared Email: This feature allows you to create multiple accounts for one email address. This is great for couples who share an email address but both need to sign an agreement.
To Field: Each email address entered in this field will be sent the agreement. (Use commas to separate the emails.) Clicking the “TO:” button will bring up your Microsoft Oulook Contact list.
CC Field: This field allows you to inform people of agreements without having them sign. They will receive emails when the agreement is published and completed. Clicking the “CC:” button will bring up your Microsoft Outlook Contact list.
Approval Field: This will send an email with a link to the agreement for review.
Subject/Message: These fields are for the subject and main body of the email that is sent to the recipients.  Choose a meaningful Subject line as this will be visible & searchable in the Agreement Manager web interface later.

Add Another Document

To create a document package or add a document that will be sent as an email attachment only, click either of the Add Document buttons.

Add Document – Print will close the connector window and allow you to open another document, make changes and then print to the connector.
Add Document – Browse will let you just add another document.

You will see the previous document(s) you printed listed at the bottom of the Connector window. You can delete the whole document package, remove selected documents, turn any documents listed into email attachments or change any overlays used by using the buttons below the list.

Overlay

If you do not wish to add signature and field tags to each document before publishing, you can create a template in Agreement Manager with fields and signatures blocks that will then overlay onto the document you are printing through the connector. The fields and signature blocks in the template will be placed onto the document in the same locations as the template.

To use this feature, create a template through the agreement manager and set it as either a user or company favourite (in the template manager make sure there is a star or asterisk beside the template). Then when you print to the connector, select the template you would like to use from the Overlay drop-down menu.

NOTE: The overlay feature will ignore extra pages in the template but will not remove excess placeholder signature blocks.

Shared Email

To create shared email accounts, first enter the email addresses the agreement is being sent to then click on the Shared Email icon. This will open a new window that will list the email addresses in the right column. Click on the edit button to enter in the names or labels you would like the accounts to display as. This can be the recipients' names or something more generic like husband and wife. Please enter the name or label with no spaces and commas separating each one.

Shared email accounts can still be created even if the email address is already registered in the system. You simply follow the same procedure outlined above. When you create shared email accounts you must specify at least two names so if the husband has already registered with just the email, he will need to re-register with the shared email account. His original account will still exist in the system though and can still be used to sign agreements.

When many people in a company are sending agreements, it's a good idea to establish what names or labels are being used when creating shared email accounts so extra accounts are not being made and clients aren't registering over and over again.

Approval Field

If you need someone to review the agreement before it’s sent, you can add their email in the Approval field. This generates an email that asks the user to review the agreement and allows them to make revisions and publish it themselves. When you publish through the Connector, the agreement is automatically saved as “Draft”. When you click the Send Now button you will have the option to send the agreement for approval and review it or to just send it.

Adding Placeholders for Signatures in Templates

While you can print any document & send it through the AEX Connector – you can also prepare document templates and insert special text codes which the Connector will interpret and insert signatures accordingly.

Agreement Express will interpret and create signatures over top of these embedded text codes. To add a simple full signature you use the following tag: [rsigf_name@company.com] where you replace “name@company.com” with the actual email address. To add yourself as a signer without having to type your email address in the To field use [rsigf_Publisher|]. You can also add placeholders signatures that will be replaced in order of the emails entered in the To field. Here is the breakdown of the tag:

[rsigf_1,Signer:Placeholder|1]

For example, if you place the following emails in this order in the To field: jane@doe.com, john@gmail.com and bob@reboot.com and place the following tag in the document: [rsigf_1:Placeholder|1], [rsigf_1:Placeholder|2], [rsigf_2:Publisher|], they will relate as follows: