How to bulk send a document for signature from a spreadsheet

Some documents go to everyone: an updated employee handbook, a new privacy policy acknowledgment, annual contractor renewals, school permission slips, a revised membership agreement. Sending them one at a time is tedious; sending one envelope with 200 signers is wrong, because each person should sign their own copy. Bulk send handles this properly.

Bulk send vs one envelope with many signers

Step by step

1. Create a template for the document, with a role such as Employee and that role's fields. (How to build a template.)
2. Open Templates and click the Bulk send icon (the table) on your template, or open the template's send page and switch to the Bulk send tab.
3. Download the CSV template. It has the exact columns your template needs, such as Employee name, Employee email.
4. Fill it in in Excel, Numbers or Google Sheets, one row per envelope, then export as CSV.
5. Upload the CSV, or paste the rows straight into the box. Parapho shows how many envelopes will be sent.
6. Add a subject and message, and choose reminders and an expiry date for the whole batch.
7. Click Send all.

A sample CSV for a two-role template, where an employee signs and then their manager countersigns:

Employee name,Employee email,Manager name,Manager email
Ada Lovelace,ada@example.com,Charles Babbage,charles@example.com
Mary Somerville,mary@example.com,Charles Babbage,charles@example.com

What happens after you send

• Every row becomes its own envelope, labeled Bulk send in your envelope list with the date.
• Each person receives a personal link and signs only their copy.
• If a row has a problem, such as a missing name or an invalid email, that row is reported and the rest are still sent. Fix it and send that row again.
• Automatic reminders go to anyone who hasn't signed yet.
• Filter the envelope list to see who's completed and who's still outstanding.

Tips for a clean batch

• Test first. Send a batch of one, to yourself, and check the email and signing experience before sending to everyone.
• Clean your list. Remove duplicates and check for typos in email addresses; a bad address means a missed signature.
• Say why in the message. "Please acknowledge the updated handbook by Friday" gets signed faster than a bare link.
• Turn on reminders and set a sensible deadline. For large batches, reminders do most of the chasing for you.
• Batches are limited to 500 rows. Split bigger lists into several batches.

Bulk sending from code

If the list lives in your own system, loop over it and create envelopes through the API, with an idempotency key for each so retries never send twice. Webhooks tell you as each one is completed.

Bulk send is included on Solo ($3 a month) and Team ($15 a month for your whole workspace). Start free