Terms

actaPASS : The sign-in service at my.actapass.com. It holds your account, your password and your second factor.

actaSIGN : The service at my.actasign.ch in which you sign documents and send them out for signing.

Organization : Your company, association or public authority in actaSIGN. In some places the app says Tenant. See Organization and tenant.

Company accounts : In actaPASS, the umbrella around one or more organizations. Only important for administrators.

Request : One or more documents that you send out for signing.

Task : What a recipient must do in a request, e.g. sign or approve.

Step : Tasks in the same step run at the same time. The steps run one after the other: step 2 only starts when step 1 is done.

Recipient : Someone who gets a task. Does not need an account.

Owners & Observers : Who created a request and who follows it.

Portfolios : Your documents in actaSIGN, with all the requests that belong to them.

Template : A saved process that you use again and again.

Process templates : Templates with subject, steps and tasks, but without a document. See Templates at a glance.

Form templates : Templates with roles and ready-placed fields for one specific document.

Role : In a form template, the task that fields belong to, e.g. «Tenant». When you use the template, you assign a person to each role.

Reference document : The document of a form template on which the fields are placed.

Data name : Short name of a field, e.g. «civil_status». It appears in the data export and is used for conditions.

Mass send : Sending the same form template to a list of people, each with their own request.

Appearances : How your signature looks on the document (signature, name, place, date …).

Deputy : A member who takes over your tasks while you are away.

Simple electronic signature (SES) : Confirms that someone has accepted a document. For internal processes and simple contracts.

Advanced electronic signature (AES) : Clearly linked to one person; the person confirms with a code by SMS.

Advanced electronic signature CH (AES CH) : Advanced signature under Swiss law, with a certificate in the person’s own name. Only with a Swiss mobile number.

Qualified electronic signature (QES) : Legally equal to a handwritten signature (Switzerland: ZertES, EU: eIDAS). Needed e.g. for contracts for which the law requires written form. See Signature types compared.

Seal : Electronic seal of the organization instead of a person.

Two-factor authentication : Sign-in with a password plus a code from an app or a passkey.

Strong authentication : Extra protection of a signing task in actaSIGN: before you sign, you confirm with a passkey or an authenticator app.

Passkey : Sign-in without a password, with a fingerprint, face recognition or a security key.

Recovery codes : One-time codes for emergencies, when your phone or passkey is not at hand.

Single sign-on : Your company’s central sign-in, e.g. with Microsoft 365. You then sign in to actaPASS with your company account.

Studio : The new document screen of actaSIGN, turned on per organization. See Studio: the new document screen.

Dry run : In Studio, filling in the document as a test, like a recipient, without saving or sending anything.