Declines, Delegation, and Pushback

Signers do not always sign. Docshark treats every alternative as a first-class, audited path. Not a dead end.

Declining

A signer choosing Decline to sign gives a reason and stops their part:

• You are notified; the envelope shows the recipient as Declined with their reason.
• Sequential envelopes halt. Later stages never fire.
• The decline is an audited event (ENVELOPE_DECLINED for webhooks).

Your options: talk it through and let them sign the same link anyway (a decline does not lock the link. If they reopen and sign, the envelope proceeds), correct and resend, or void.

Delegating

Delegate hands the signing task to someone else, "this should go to our CFO." The signer names the replacement; the envelope redirects to the new person under the same role and fields, and the delegation itself is recorded in the trail, who handed it off, to whom, when.

Requesting changes

Request changes opens a negotiation: the signer proposes edits, clause rewording, a changed date, instead of signing as-is. You see the request with the proposed text, and the negotiation thread carries the back-and-forth until it resolves into a corrected send or a signature.

Approver rejection

Approvers reject rather than decline. Same effect on the pipeline, different word in the record. A rejection typically means "fix the document," so it usually leads to a corrected envelope rather than a conversation inside this one.

Withdrawing consent

A signer can withdraw their agreement to sign electronically at any point. The ESIGN-mandated right. The withdrawal is recorded, the envelope stops for them, and the remaining route depends on your next move (correct, replace the recipient, or void).

What never happens silently

Every pushback leaves a mark: the reason, the actor, the timestamp, and the state change all land in the audit trail. There is no "they just never signed" mystery. The envelope always tells you exactly where it stands.