Service at UC Berkeley

Background

DocuSign functionality includes the ability to manage how long envelopes (documents) are retained in the system before they are purged. Known as “Retention Management”, this function is activated at the Department level by your DocuSign Department Account Manager.

The following describes how Retention Management works and what you should be aware of from a sender’s perspective when it is active on your Department's DocuSign account. Retention Management is a very valuable tool but there are important nuances that you should be aware of so it can function in accordance with your Department’s needs as well as with UC requirements.

From a Sender’s perspective, the Notification settings are the most important, not only for notifications you receive about the envelopes you send but also notifications for your recipients. The following is a summary, and we recommend you review Purge Envelopes for a more detailed description of how this works.

Recipient Notification Settings

If you want your recipients to have the opportunity to download documents they’ve received before they are purged (recommended), notification settings are important and we recommend you provide guidance to your recipients in the cover email and/or the top of your document.

Recipients with a DocuSign account can control the purge notifications they receive via My Preferences > Notifications >.

Certain recipients will not receive purge notifications. A purge warning email is not sent to recipients who:
- Did not receive a notification for the envelope (i.e. the envelope was voided prior to the recipient’s turn).
- Have not been a party in the envelope who was reached in the envelope's routing order and therefore at least had the opportunity to sign/access the documents.
- Do not have a DocuSign account (e.g. a signer who did not elect to activate a signer account).

Sender Notification Settings

Senders can control the purge email notifications they receive in their “Sending and Signing Notifications”. Turning off email notifications is an individual user preference under the “Personal Information” section in the individual's DocuSign account, not an Department Account Administrator’s setting.

Note that purge Email Notifications that are sent to the Sender of the envelope can be also suppressed by the Department Account Administrator via an account-wide setting. This setting must be requested to be enabled by DocuSign Support or your DocuSign Account Team.

Other Considerations

Envelope Status. Draft envelopes are purged according to a separate rule. Drafts are retained for only 30 days, and then deleted from the system without further notification. This is a DocuSign controlled setting.
Caution, potential for confusion: If any party on a DocuSign transaction deletes an envelope before it is purged, they will still receive the purge warning notifications. This is because the deletion only pertains to that person’s account and not to the envelope within the DocuSign system. The only way for a sender or recipient to not receive these notifications is to disable the notification option in their My Preferences > Notifications.
If you (sender) set an Envelope Expiration time, you must take that into account in your Retention Management settings (controlled by your Department Account Administrator for the whole Department) because the Envelope Expiration time is added to the Retention time-frame. For example: the envelope is retained for 30 days, then moved into the purge queue where it is retained for 14 days before being purged on day 65
- Envelope expiration 20 days +
- Retention period 30 days +
- Purge queue 14 days + = Document purged Day 65

References

DocuSign Retention Management Sender Specific Considerations