Automatically add tags - docusignapi

Question

Using MS Word documents as our source files, is there a way to include special token characters or MS Word fields inside an uploaded document so that Dousing can read the special tokens or field and replace them with the appropriate tags and signatory data?
This would allow me to adjust our document creation software to insert tokens where we needed tags, along with hidden filed that contained recipient data, and then our users could just click a button to get the contract, upload it to DS and have all the fields and tags populate properly.
Tell me you can do this!

Answer 1

Yes, DocuSign can automatically place DocuSign tabs in documents using "anchor text" that exists in the documents. The "Anchoring tabs" section of the REST API guide (starting on p 292) -- http://www.docusign.com/sites/default/files/REST_API_Guide_v2.pdf -- provides information about how you can achieve this when creating an Envelope with the REST API.
Using "anchor text" with tabs enables you to have DocuSign automatically add/place the tabs in the documents in each place where the text string you specify (i.e., the "anchor text" string) exists in the document. For example, if your documents contained the string ~s1 in each location where the first signer's signature was required, the REST API request you use to create the envelope would include the following tabs information to have DocuSign automatically add a Signature tab for the signer in each location where ~s1 appears in the documents:
"tabs": {
"signHereTabs": [
{
"anchorString": "~s1",
"anchorXOffset": "1",
"anchorYOffset": "0.5",
"anchorIgnoreIfNotPresent": "false",
"anchorUnits": "inches"
}
]
}
Note: The only property absolutely required to use anchor text for tab placement is anchorString -- I've included some additional properties in the sample above that you may or may not want to utilize. See the REST API guide for information about the meaning/purpose of the other properties included in the sample above.

Answer 2

Yes you can do this with DocuSign, as long as you insert these tokens into the document content itself, once the document is uploaded the DocuSign platform will scan through the content and insert any anchor tags where applicable.
For instance, if you have an invisible string in your Word document that is \s1 and you have a Custom Tag saved in your DocuSign account that has \s1 set for its anchor string then signature tabs (or whatever type of tab you'd like) will be inserted wherever \s1 is found in the document. Or if you don't want to save anchor tags at the account level (which means they are applied on all of your envelopes) you can anchor your tabs through api call(s) so that they are only applied to that envelope.
For more information please see the Tab Positioning section under Explore -> Features in the DocuSign Dev Center:
http://www.docusign.com/developer-center/explore/features/stick-etabs
You'll see that one common approach is to set the font color of these special tokens to the same color as the document background (usually white) which in turn makes them invisible so that you only see the DocuSign tabs at those locations.