Digital Signature in Alfresco

[dgenard]

I would like to announce the availabilty of an Alfresco extension to support digital signatures.

With this module, end-users are able to digitally sign a document very easily, direclty from the Alfresco web UI.
Digital signatures can be used in the context of an Alfresco workflow, or as a simple action.

The implementation is based on standard certificate technologies for optimal security, and gives legal value to your documents.

See a presentation and a demo movie of the module on our website (in English)
http://www.cediti.be/en/solutions/content-management/the-digital-signature

or (in French)
http://www.cediti.be/fr/solutions/gestion-de-contenu/la-signature-electronique


Feel free to contact us for more details,

Denis Genard
http://www.cediti.be

[mindthegab]

Cool, that's a very useful extension for enterprise application of Alfresco.
Nothing opensource tough ? 🙂

Ciao,
Gab

[rdanner]

Cool, that's a very useful extension for enterprise application of Alfresco.
Nothing opensource tough ? 🙂

Ciao,
Gab

I think what you are saying is that this would make a very nice forge project! No?

[banania]

Does somebody have more technical informations about this module ?

Which browsers are supported ?
Beyond the fact that it puts the signature in the document, is there some linked aspect to store informations on signature on the binder ?
Does it allows multiple signatures ?

Which is the cost of this module ? Do we get source code buying it ?


Regards
Banania

[dgenard]

Hello,
here are a few answers.

Which browsers are supported ?

All common browsers are supported.

But an important question is which type of Private Key Infrastructure (PKI) you will use.
Mutlitple types of hardware configuration may be used for digital signatures : smartcards, usb-tokens, certificate stores, …
The module currently supports smartcards, but other configurations might be supported in the (near) future.

Beyond the fact that it puts the signature in the document, is there some linked aspect to store informations on signature on the binder ?

Not yet.

Does it allows multiple signatures ?

Strictly speaking, it currently allows to put multiple signatures on a single PDF document. But the way multiple signatures will be used in the context of an Alfresco workflow will be improved in next releases.

Which is the cost of this module ? Do we get source code buying it ?

Price depends of a few factors : deployment infrastructure, custom adaptations, support options, … You'll get the complete source code with the module.
The module is production-ready for some environments, but its development is still ongoing to support other deployment configurations.
We progress on a demand-driven way, and we develop first the most requested features.
So, for technical and pricing informations, send an email to info@cediti.be, describing the context in which you plan to use it. We'll then be able to send you a more precise proposal.

Best regards,
Denis Genard
http://www.cediti.be

[pero]

Hello.

I am currently working on Alfresco project in my company. We plan to use Alfresco for storing scanned images in jpg or tiff format. We also have a need to digitally sign these image documents. Is it possible to digitally sign these kind of non pdf documents with your module?

[dgenard]

No, not yet.
Only signatures on PDFs are currently supported.
Regards, Denis

[ellsmasher]

My company uses Entrust for its PKI, with all of our users having an entrust client installed.  We also package Adobe Reader/Acrobat internally to include an Entrust plugin for applying electronic signatures to signature fields in PDF documents.  We do not use a card reader, but merely a password authentication challenge to sign documents through the entrust PKI CA.

A question about this Alfresco module: how are the signature fields added to the PDF created in a workflow.  From your demo, they appear to merely be appended to the bottom of the document.  Is there a way to design a document template in the source media (say MS Word) with a pre-defined signature place-holder.  Then when a workflow generates a PDF instance from the source template, convert the place-holder to an Adobe signaure field.  When the sign document action is performed in Alfresco, have it launch the PKI client to generate the signature event for the target signature field in the PDF. 

This mode of use would be very interesting and would be ultimately adoptable for all of our document management use cases.

[dgenard]

Hello,
indeed, we plan to improve the support for customizable positions of signatures (page and coordinates).
Thanks for your interesting suggestion. We'll study its feasability for future releases of the module.
Regards,
Denis

[ellsmasher]

I'm glad to see that positional functionality is already in the works, the would be a good gap filler as the proposed automated place-holder functionality is developed.  I would like to contact you concerning further evaluation of your e-sig module.