More ways to work
Setting a signing order (sequential signing)
By default, Inkless emails every recipient at the same time and lets them sign in any order. If you need people to sign in a specific sequence — an employee before their manager, or a customer before your legal team — turn on signing order.
Available on Starter and Starter Team plans.
Turning it on
- In the Recipients panel (while preparing a document or a document set), toggle Set signing order on.
- Your recipients turn into a numbered sequence based on the order they're currently listed in — recipient 1 signs first, then recipient 2, and so on.
Building your sequence
- Reorder recipients by dragging the handle next to their name (or, with a row focused, press Alt + ↑ / ↓).
- Group people into the same step by checking Signs at the same time as above on a recipient — this puts them side-by-side with the person above them, so they're emailed together and can sign in parallel, while everyone else still waits their turn.
- A plain-language summary at the bottom of the panel shows exactly how your sequence will play out, e.g. Alice → Bob & Carol → Legal Team.
Turning the toggle back off collapses everyone into a single step — the normal "everyone at once" behavior.
Sending
When you click Send for Signing (or Send Document Set) with a multi-step order configured, Inkless shows you a Send in order? confirmation first, explaining exactly who's about to be emailed and reassuring you that everyone else will be notified automatically as their turn comes up. Only the first step's recipients are emailed immediately.
What your recipients see
Someone whose turn hasn't arrived yet who opens their link early sees a "Not ready for you yet" screen letting them know they're, say, "signer 2 of 3," and that they'll be emailed automatically — no action needed on their part. They're not shown who else is signing or emails/names of other signers.
Changing the order after sending
Go to All Documents and click Change order on a sequential document. You can freely reorder anyone who hasn't been emailed yet; recipients who are already signed or already notified are locked and shown with a lock icon, since their step has already gone out. This option is only available for single documents — a document set's order can't be changed once sent.