DocuSign Recipient and Custom Fields

Question

I am new to DocuSign technology and need to get few pointers.

I have tested some java API to send emails out thru Docusign and did my homework. Few questions:

1. Can I create a DocuSign Template without a Recipient? DocuSign is not letting me to add custom fields without a recipient.
2. My use case is: Put a template on docusign with some custom fields (say 10). My application would pass values for 3 custom fields along with new recipient (email address). I expect recipient would fill rest of custom fields.

• How can I create/send an envelope with a Template ID and Recipients? I see error that you can pass only one of them.
• I am able to pass values to custom fields via EnvelopeDifinition->TemplateRole->Tabs->TexTabs. But, the values are not populated if there are multiple recipients.

I am looking at some guidance on the approach for my use case and some pseudo code if that helps.

Thanks

Answer 1

1. You cannot create a template without recipients, because you cannot create an envelope without recipients. At least one is required. A template is a repetitive envelope and if it were created without recipients - you can have an envelope without recipients which is not allowed.

2. There are two types of recipients in templates. The one you probably need is a role based (templateRole) that does not include the email/name but has to be provided when an envelope is created from the template (also called placeholder). That recipient can still have fields (tabs, tags) and the API can provide the value for some of them.

This article talks about how to set the values of tabs in an envelope created from a template and is exactly what you're saying you want to do.