Item: airSlate WorkFlow
Rating: 5
Author: SEAN SIEMEN

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use airSlate for contracts, to sign tax returns, and to collect and distribute payroll information from our clients and to our clients. Originally, the hope was to streamline the signature, document distribution and warehousing of contracts, tax returns, and payroll data. The challenge we encountered with airSlate had more to do with the learning curve than with anything else. We wanted to automate the payroll forms in particular and we just could not get it to reliably work for us in that way. Now we have a more stripped down approach to those documents that works for the most part and at least puts the data we need within reach of our team. It seems like every software company is now using descriptors like "workspace" for what they do, airSlate is no different. This is not well defined in the helps files neither is it clear when you're there in the app. You can create a workspace for every client but each a separately billed platform and there is no sorting to easily distribute between different types of documents. The distribution of users is also weak and uncustomizable. The only way to make it work for everyone is to make everyone an admin which defeats the purpose.

Pros and Cons

Contracts and signatures all in one place
Bot automation with a learning curve

Bot automation is not as easy to understand as represented
Each workspace is a separately billed space but there are no sub-workspaces
Actual customization of roles - Admin role is the best default for everyone in your team if you want to do less than "do everything for everyone".

Return on Investment

We now have a single place all employees can go to send and receive signatures and contracts for the business as a whole.

Product Configurability

Because most of the users except Admin users are pretty limited. I would like to be able to allow an employee to send a 1040 signature request on my behalf but unless they are an Admin they cannot create the flow to do that...unless I'm sending the same 1040 multiple times to multiple people which makes no sense for that application.
Workspaces are basically all-in-one areas that cannot be used to efficiently sort or distribute information. I have 40 accounting clients and can't sort ANY of the documents I sent them by workspace so I have to go hunting for them. This makes this platform essentially JUST a signature collecting station and not one for more. The bot automation is also confusing. Everything I set up, even based on notes, MUST be reviewed by support because it never works right for me.

Alternatives Considered

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC

Adobe is extremely easy to use for forms that have to be built every time - like tax returns - even when it sometimes thinks every box needs data that is already there from the tax program. It requires no account creation or other hoops for the signer to complete a signature whereas airSlate does and I get the form in my inbox with step-by-step tracking of views, delegations, etc without having to build a bot for every tax return. airSlate is much better built for contracts and employee information forms because you can set up a form and when you send it to an employee or business it is unique to them even if you then have to coach them through creating the account to complete the signature.

Key Insights

Do you think airSlate WorkFlow delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with airSlate WorkFlow's feature set?

Did airSlate WorkFlow live up to sales and marketing promises?

Did implementation of airSlate WorkFlow go as expected?

Would you buy airSlate WorkFlow again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, Adobe Acrobat Sign, Google Workspace, QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise

Likelihood to Recommend

If you or your staff understand bots well, this will probably work really well for a lot of things including signatures to document distribution. IF you understand it. If you don't have someone you can either rely on or pay to set that up for you as you hope for then expect to spend a lot of time setting up all of your documents the first time and also be prepared to be frustrated that everything that seems to make sense in one part does not work in the next. The excitement of being able to build one form for all employee forms in one pass just wouldn't work, especially if I had two places on the same form that asked for the same data bit from the input forms, such as the employee name on form i9. If you're like me, you can only spend so much time building a form that physically already exists before you lose the value of the airSlate digital version.

Users and Roles

5 - Everything from admin and owners to file clerks and data entry.

Support Headcount Required

1 - The in-house support is me and it's not really supposed to need that.

Business Processes Supported

Signing annual tax returns
Employee Payroll data including W4, i9, W9, Direct Deposit forms
Client Service Agreements between our company and our clients

Future Planned Uses

To maintain a digital history of signatures and documents sent via airSlate

Likelihood to Renew

I give this rating because I am hopeful the functions I would like will be added in the near future.

Usability

The learning curve on bots is bigger than even the training suggests. I'm an otherwise intelligent and resourceful user with years of cloud and desktop application experience and EVERY time I use a bot I ALWAYS need support to make it work. Since it's the main selling point of the app, it makes sense it would be easier to learn or easier to understand without having to abandon flows I've already built that just aren't working for simpler versions that end up just being a workaround to what I anticipated.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
None	Unnecessarily complex Requires technical support Slow to learn Cumbersome Lots to learn

Easy Tasks

Sending a signature request
Storing or downloading an already signed document
Providing access to other team members

Difficult Tasks

Getting flows with bots to work
Signer only account creation just to sign a document
No way to handle duplicate information on the same form with a pre-filled form to one the bot fills out - i.e. the name on page 1 with another name box on page 2 of the pdf form.

Mobile Interface Availability and Impressions

Yes - It did not feel more user friendly.

Not a solution for everything

Overall Satisfaction with airSlate