A transaction is the experience of a OneSpan Sign user as they review, accept, sign, and potentially download documents. The sender of a transaction generally performs the following procedures :

Configuring Recipient Authentication

To add an extra layer of security to your online transactions, OneSpan Sign offers robust and flexible recipient-authentication options. Specifically, you can select various ways of verifying the identity of the recipient of an invitation to a transaction before they are permitted to access the transaction's documents.

The rest of this section describes how to configure the following types of authentication:

By default, the authentication process is optional. However, it is possible to require an Authentication Method for all recipients of all transactions created in your account. To arrange this, please contact our Support Team.

General Authentication

The term General Authentication designates tools built into OneSpan Sign for verifying a recipient's identity. A recipient's identity can also be verified using the third-party authentication tools described in the section KBA Authentication.

Prerequisites

  • If you want to assign an SMS, Q&A, or SSO method to a recipient, that authentication method must be enabled for your account. You can arrange this by contacting our Support Team.
  • If you want to assign a Document Verification Only or Document Verification with Facial Comparison method to a recipient, that authentication method must be enabled for your account. You can arrange this by contacting your Account Representative.

Action

To specify a General authentication method for a transaction recipient:

  1. Locate the Recipients section of the Transaction page.
  2. Click Add Recipient, or locate an existing recipient whose authentication method you'd like to change.
  3. Click the ellipsis (...) in the last column, and then click Settings.
  4. Select the Authentication tab. A new dialog box appears.
  5. Ensure that the selected Type is General.
  6. Select one of the following authentication methods, and then follow any prompts that appear:
    • None: This is the default authentication type. The recipient's identity is verified by their secure name and password when they log in to their email account.
    • SMS: The recipient's identity is verified by a secure SMS code sent to their cellphone. The recipient must enter that code to open the transaction.
    • For SMS codes, please note the following:

      • An SMS code can be used only once.
      • By default, SMS codes expire 5 minutes after being sent. However, SMS codes can be configured to expire after times that range from 1 to 10 minutes. To change the expiry time for your SMS codes, please contact our Support Team.
      • By default, a user may attempt to enter an SMS code a maximum of 3 times. However, this can be changed to allow up to 5 attempts. If a user does not successfully enter their SMS code within the maximum number of attempts, they will be blocked from further attempts until the current SMS code expires.

      • A valid SMS code has between 4 and 10 numbers.
      • The SMS message received by signers will be set to “Your SMS verification code is: <passcode>”. The SMS portion of the message can be customized per account by contacting our Support Team. The replacement string must be between 1 and 30 characters.

      • The SMS message cannot contain phone numbers or links. Only letters, numbers, spaces, dashes, underscores and ampersands can be used.

    • Q&A: The recipient's identity is verified using a secure question & answer defined by the sender. At least one question & answer is required. Once the recipient launches the Signer Experience, they will be prompted to answer these questions.
    • SSO: The recipient's identity is verified through an Identity Provider (IdP). For more , see Single Sign-On Authentication.
    • SSO authentication cannot be configured via connectors or mobile applications.

    • Document Verification Only: Validates the recipient's driver’s license, passport, or national identity card.
    • Document Verification with Facial Comparison: Examines one of those identity documents, and compares the recipient's photo on that document with the recipient's selfie.
    • If you selected either of the above Document Verification methods, you will be prompted to enter the recipient's mobile phone number. If you don't do so, and if the recipient starts the transaction on their computer, the recipient will be prompted to provide their phone number before they start the verification process.

      ID Verification is the generic name for the methods Document Verification Only and Document Verification with Facial Comparison.

      • If using document verification, or document verification with facial comparison, note that a recipient cannot proceed to the verification process without first providing consent to the processing of their personal data. Clicking Next to continue with the verification implies that your recipient consents to the collection of their personal data. You can configure your workflow so that a explicit consent must be given via a checkbox.

      • Customers can decide: (1) if they want to enable Document Verification Only and/or Document Verification with Facial Comparison; (2) if they want ID Verification to be used when a recipient tries to access signed documents.

      • Starting with OneSpan Sign 11.44, ID Verification and KBA Authentication can both be assigned to a recipient. To access the relevant transaction, the recipient must pass both authentication methods.

      • ID Verification is currently supported in all OneSpan Sign supported languages except Arabic. If Arabic is selected during transaction creation, the ID Verification experience will default to English. We are planning to support Arabic in the future.

      • Once a transaction with ID Verification is complete, robust vendor-independent Audit Trails store all authentication and e-signature actions in a unified Evidence Summary document. The Evidence Summary does not contain images of the recipient’s ID document or face.

      • ID Verfication for OneSpan Sign is available only in the following environments: US1, US2 , CA and EU. It is not available in the US FedRAMP or AU environments.

      • ID Verification is not supported when Reassigning Recipients.

      • ID Verification is not supported within iFrames.

      • ID Verification will work only if all the recipients in a transaction have different email addresses.

      • The following ID Verification features are planned for future releases: (1) support for Bulk Sending; (2) support for customized workflows; (3) the ability to combine ID Verification for a recipient with the Q&A, SMS and SSO authentication methods.

  7. Click Save. A green dot next to the Authentication option indicates that an authentication method has been set.

By default, a signer is locked out of signing if they fail multiple authentication attempts. However, such signers can be automatically unlocked once they're locked out. If you want to arrange this, please contact our Support Team.

Video Tutorial

 

KBA Authentication

Knowledge-Based AuthenticationClosed Knowledge Based Authentication (KBA) allows you to present challenge questions to your recipient. If the recipient provides the correct answers, they are verified as the correct recipient of the transaction. (KBA) relies on the third-party KBA provider LexisNexis to verify a recipient's identity.

KBA questions are generated dynamically, based on information in a recipient's personal credit report.

KBA authentication can be used with any of the General authentication methods described above.

Prerequisites

Action

To specify a KBA authentication method for a transaction recipient:

  1. On the Recipients section of the Drafts tab of the Transaction page, hover your mouse over the row of the recipient.
  2. Click the ellipsis (...) in the last column, and then click Settings.
  3. Select the Authentication tab. A new dialog box appears.
  4. Ensure that the, selected Type is KBA.
  5. For KBA Provider, select LexisNexis.

    If you want to disable KBA authentication, select None.

  6. Enter information about the recipient (fields marked with an asterisk are required).
  7. Click Save. A green dot next to the Authentication option indicates that an authentication method has been configured.

Note the following:

  • If a signer fails to authenticate using LexisNexis KBA, the sender will need to create a new transaction if they want to re-attempt KBA authentication.

  • Signers are now authenticated each time they access the signing link, regardless of whether or not the signing has been completed.

Starting with the 11.42 release of OneSpan Sign, the Classic User Experience is no longer supported for SaaS customers. This section is thus only intended for on-premises customers who have not yet migrated to our Container deployment.

Support for on-premises deployments, including those using Containers, ended on December 31, 2023.

For more information, please see our OneSpan Product Life Cycle page, and consult the OneSpan End of Life policy.

For any additional questions contact your Customer Service Representative.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Configuring Recipient Authentication

Before OneSpan Sign permits a user to access a document package, they must be authenticated as an intended recipient of the package. The package owner specifies an Authentication Method for each signer when they add the signer to the package. The owner can specify different methods for different signers.

The basic Authentication Methods are:

If you wish, you can require an Authentication Method for all signers of all packages created in your account. To arrange this, please contact our Support Team.

Email

The default Authentication Method is Email. In this case, a signer's identity is validated based on their ability to access the email message sent by OneSpan Sign. Clearly, this method depends on the security of the email system. The Q&A and SMS Authentication Methods provide enhanced levels of security.

To see how Email Authentication appears to the signer, see Authentication by Email.

Q&A

The Q&A Authentication Method requires the package owner to specify one or two question-answer pairs. If the signer can correctly answer the questions, they are validated as the intended package recipient.

Senders can choose to mask the signer's answers, so that when the signer types an answer, each typed character appears on the screen as an asterisk (*).

OneSpan Sign's default behavior is to mask a signer's answers. This default can be changed by contacting our Support Team. In any case, senders can always overwrite any setting of the "mask answer" check boxes.

To see how Q&A questions appear to the signer, see Authentication by Q&A

SMS

When a package owner chooses the SMS Authentication Method, they must provide the number of the signer's mobile phone. OneSpan Sign sends a code to this number once the package is sent. The identity of the signer is validated based on their ability to provide this code when they attempt to access the package.

For SMS codes, please note the following:

  • An SMS code can be used only once.
  • By default, SMS codes expire 5 minutes after being sent. However, SMS codes can be configured to expire after times that range from 1 to 10 minutes. To change the expiry time for your SMS codes, please contact our Support Team.
  • By default, a user may attempt to enter an SMS code a maximum of 3 times. However, this can be changed to allow up to 5 attempts. If a user does not successfully enter their SMS code within the maximum number of attempts, they will be blocked from further attempts until the current SMS code expires.

  • A valid SMS code has between 4 and 10 numbers.
  • The SMS message received by signers will be set to “Your SMS verification code is: <passcode>”. The SMS portion of the message can be customized per account by contacting our Support Team. The replacement string must be between 1 and 30 characters.

  • The SMS message cannot contain phone numbers or links. Only letters, numbers, spaces, dashes, underscores and ampersands can be used.

Customers who dial outside of North America must dial the exit code first (011), then the country code, and then the local phone number. They should omit any listed trunk code, which is typically a "0" at the beginning of the number. A widget is in place to assist you.

To see how a signer provides an SMS code, see Authentication by SMS.