Posted by Phil Ayton

March 8, 2017

The reason I design software is because I’m an engineer who doesn’t like to get his hands dirty.  Not literally, I just mean that I don’t like to get messed up.  What I do like, however, is creating software that interacts with the real world. When we were designing Sysero E-Sign, our new digital signature extension for MS Office, we needed a way of allowing users to verify a document has been signed by multiple parties.  And not just electronic documents, but paper documents, too. 

That’s where QR codes come in. QR codes are those square bar-code-like things that used to be everywhere - on magazines, bill boards, even business cards.  But just like 3D TV’s, you see them a lot less these days.  Despite this, the team at Google quietly added a feature to Chrome for IOS last month (and coming soon to an Android phone near you), that lets you scan QR codes without any additional software.  To see this in your iPhone, just type QR into the spotlight search and it’s right there (assuming you have Chrome installed – which you should).  Clicking on “Scan QR Code” starts your phone’s camera, which you can point at any QR code and Chrome will go to the appropriate web page. 

We decided to incorporate QR codes into the new E-Sign feature to make it easy to confirm the originality of a document. Each final E-Sign document has a QR code that anyone can scan to verify that the document is an exact copy of the original within a couple of seconds. This helps ensure that there’s only one valid copy of a document (with all signed parties) and any changes made through revisions are reflected in the final copy. With additional rights, users can even see the history of the document, view all the data inside the document and download a PDF as a final visual check of a paper document. Thanks Google! 

We’ll be demonstrating the new feature at the upcoming LegalEx Conference on 28-29 March. Tickets are complimentary, so come visit us at Booth L630 for a demonstration and the chance to win an Amazon Echo Dot.

Phil Ayton is the founder and CEO of Sysero. His expertise lies in helping law firms drive greater productivity, ensure compliance and drive client service innovation through knowledge automation. Contact him at phil.ayton@sysero.com.