If you’re running a big team and need to wrangle document signatures, Hellosign can be a lifesaver—or a mess, if you don’t set it up right. This guide cuts through the noise and gets straight to what matters: creating, organizing, and managing team accounts in Hellosign without losing your mind. If you’re in IT, ops, or just the unlucky soul who drew the "admin" straw, read on.
1. Know What You’re Working With: Hellosign Teams 101
First, let’s get the basics out of the way. Hellosign (now owned by Dropbox, if you care) is an eSignature platform. Teams in Hellosign let you group users, manage permissions, and centralize billing. Large orgs often use Hellosign for things like HR onboarding, sales contracts, and vendor paperwork.
What teams are not: - Not a full-blown identity management system - Not a substitute for a document management tool - Not immune to confusion if you don’t plan ahead
If you’re hoping for magic “one-click onboarding for 500 users,” you’ll be disappointed. But with a little planning, you can keep things simple and scalable.
2. Step 1: Pick the Right Hellosign Plan
Not every Hellosign plan supports teams or advanced admin features. Before you start sending invites, double-check your plan:
- Essentials: Good for individuals. Skip it.
- Standard: Teams start here. Basic admin, limited controls.
- Premium: Needed for SSO, advanced permissions, bulk user actions.
Pro tip: Don’t cheap out. If you’re managing dozens (or hundreds) of users, spring for Premium. The cost of confusion and manual cleanup later is way higher than the price bump.
3. Step 2: Map Out Your Team Structure (Before You Click Anything)
Large orgs almost always regret skipping this. Spend 10 minutes thinking about:
- Who actually needs a seat? Only assign paid seats to people who send documents for signature. Viewers and occasional signers don’t need accounts.
- How are your departments organized? HR, legal, sales, and finance usually need their own spaces and admins.
- Who should be admins? Limit this to people you trust to manage users and settings. Too many cooks = chaos.
- Do you need groups within your team? Hellosign supports “Teams within Teams” (Premium only), so you can create sub-teams.
What to ignore: Don’t overcomplicate with “one team per project” or micro-managing roles unless you have a compliance reason.
4. Step 3: Set Up Your Team in Hellosign
Time to get your hands dirty.
- Log in as the account owner or admin. Only they can set up teams.
- Go to the admin console. Usually under your avatar > “Admin Console” or “Team.”
- Create your team. Give it a clear name (“Acme Corp HR” beats “Team 1”).
- Add users: You can invite by email. For big orgs, this is tedious. If you’re on Premium, ask Hellosign support about bulk user uploads—sometimes they’ll help, but it’s not self-serve.
- Assign roles: Decide who’s an admin, who’s a member. Don’t hand out admin rights like candy.
- (Optional) Set up sub-teams: If your org is bigger, create sub-teams for each department or region.
What works: Keeping things simple. Start with one or two admins per team and add more only if you really need to.
What doesn’t: Inviting everyone at once without telling them what to do. Send a quick heads-up internally before invites go out.
5. Step 4: Configure Permissions and Access
This is where most large teams stumble. Hellosign has a few permission layers:
- Admins: Can add/remove users, manage billing, and tweak settings.
- Members: Can send/sign documents, but can’t manage the team.
- Team settings: Control things like who can see which documents, template access, and whether users can invite others.
To do: - Set document visibility (do you want all salespeople to see each other’s contracts? Probably not.) - Limit template editing to admins or power users. - Turn off “let users invite others” unless you want random invites floating around.
What to ignore: Overly strict permissions if you’re not in a regulated industry. You’ll just create support tickets for yourself.
6. Step 5: Set Up SSO (Single Sign-On)—If You Can
If your org uses Okta, Azure AD, or another SSO provider, get this hooked up early. SSO isn’t just about convenience—it's about control. You can disable access centrally when someone leaves, and users have one less password to forget.
Caveats: - SSO is only on Premium plans. - Setup usually requires help from IT and sometimes Hellosign support. - Test with a handful of users before rolling out to the whole org.
Pro tip: Don’t skip SSO just because it takes a bit of setup. Manual user management is a slog at scale.
7. Step 6: Train Your Team (But Don’t Overdo It)
Most people don’t need a two-hour webinar. A 10-minute screen share or a one-pager is usually enough:
- How to send a document for signature
- Where their signed docs live
- Who to bug if something breaks
What works: Simple, direct instructions. What doesn’t: Endless documentation no one reads.
8. Step 7: Stay on Top of User Management
People come and go. You don’t want to pay for zombie accounts or have ex-employees with access.
- Set a calendar reminder to review seats and roles every quarter.
- Remove users who’ve left. If you have SSO, this is automatic. Otherwise, do it manually.
- Reassign documents/templates before deleting users, or you might lose access to important files.
Pro tip: If you’re scaling fast, delegate user management to a trusted admin in each department.
9. Step 8: Monitor Usage and Billing
Hellosign’s admin dashboard shows usage stats: who’s sending, how many docs, who’s idle, etc. Use this:
- Spot people who need more help (or don’t need a seat)
- Catch accidental overages before your finance team yells at you
- See if you’re actually using the features you’re paying for
What to ignore: Vanity metrics like “total documents sent ever.” Focus on real, actionable data.
10. Step 9: Review Security and Compliance Settings
If you’re in a regulated industry (finance, healthcare, legal), make sure you:
- Turn on audit trails for all documents
- Set up required retention policies
- Regularly review access logs
If you’re not in a regulated industry, don’t overcomplicate. Hellosign is already pretty secure out of the box.
11. Troubleshooting: Common Gotchas and How to Avoid Them
- Invite emails go to spam: Tell users to check their spam folders, or send invites from your own email with a heads-up.
- Users sign up with personal emails: Ask everyone to use their work email. Clean up any stragglers for consistency.
- People can’t find their documents: Make sure they know where to look—Hellosign’s UI isn’t always intuitive.
- Feature confusion: Not all plans support all features. If something’s missing, check your subscription before blaming yourself.
12. Keeping It Simple: Final Thoughts
You don’t need to build a bureaucratic monster. Start with clear roles, keep your team structure lean, and revisit your setup every few months. Hellosign’s team tools aren’t perfect, but they’re good enough if you don’t let things sprawl. Fix what’s broken, skip what’s not needed, and remember: The goal is to spend less time on admin, not more.