Unexpected behavior with composite templates - docusignapi

Question

I am having an issue with understanding how inline templates work. I have 2 server templates and 2 inline templates, 1 inline template to marry up with a server template. I want to see if I don't fill in the info for the inline template that the envelope still works. Here is my request:
Request
{
"compositeTemplates": [
{
"serverTemplates": [
{
"sequence": "1",
"templateId": "8a3a21af-4348-45e1-85b9-72a331c9c67a"
}
],
"inlineTemplates": [
{
"sequence": "1",
"recipients": {
"signers": []
}
}
],
"document": {
"documentId": "2",
"name": "FinalSale.docx",
"fileExtension": "docx",
"documentBase64": [bytearray]
}
},
{
"serverTemplates": [
{
"sequence": "1",
"templateId": "d22048be-4bfe-43c2-9acf-3d5bcd79144f"
}
],
"inlineTemplates": [
{
"sequence": "1",
"recipients": {
"signers": [
{
"name": "Kathy Keaton",
"email": "KathyKeaton1#outlook.com",
"recipientId": "1",
"accessCode": "5000",
"routingOrder": "1",
"roleName": "##Buyer1"
},
{
"name": "Kathy Lloyd",
"email": "KathyLloyd1#outlook.com",
"recipientId": "2",
"accessCode": "5000",
"routingOrder": "2",
"roleName": "##Seller1"
}
]
}
}
],
"document": {
"documentId": "1",
"name": "Going to test out signatures and initials.docx",
"fileExtension": "docx",
"documentFields": [
{
"name": "dgsvalue",
"value": "dgs-222"
}
],
"documentBase64": [bytearray]
}
}
],
"status": "sent",
"emailSubject": "Please sign the following 2 documents at 2:39 PM"
}
Response
{
"envelopeId": "f8a090cf-ddc3-4612-8f24-9ff13beddc48",
"uri": "/envelopes/f8a090cf-ddc3-4612-8f24-9ff13beddc48",
"statusDateTime": "2017-02-01T19:39:26.2330000Z",
"status": "sent"
}
I was assuming that the inline templates would have to supply all the signers. The role names in the 2 templates are the same ( ##Buyer1 and ##Seller1 are in both templates ). I would have thought that not having the inline template filled in would mean that it would fail on that particular document. I was wrong, but I'm not sure why. Did it succeed because the role names are the same on both server templates and specifying it for one inline template was enough?

Answer 1

You are not required to supply all the signers in an inline template.
Here are the complete rules for Composite template usage.
Quoting some of them here.
Each CompositeTemplate adds a new document and templates overlay into
the envelope. For each CompositeTemplate these rules are applied:
Templates are overlaid in the order of their Sequence value.
If Document is not passed into the system, the first template’s
document (based on template’s Sequence value) is used.
Last in wins in all cases except for the document (i.e. envelope
information, recipient information, secure field information). This
was done to keep things simple. There is no special casing.
For example, if you want higher security on a tab, then that needs to be specified in the last template in which the tab is included. If you want higher security on a role recipient it needs to be in the last template in which that role recipient is specified.
Recipient matching is based on Recipient Role and Routing Order. If there are matches, the recipient information is merged together. A final pass is done on all CompositeTemplates, after all template overlays have been applied, to collapse recipients with the same email, username and routing order. This prevents having the same recipients at the same routing order.