Sign and lock a completed phase, step and/or report

In this article we will show you how to electronically sign and lock a phase or step in a study or a report. 

Please note that in order to sign a phase or step, you need the "Sign" right assigned to you and to lock, you need the "Lock" right assigned to you. It is not possible to sign and lock the entire form. You will need to do this for the individual phases and steps.

Sign or unsign a phase, step or report

You can sign individual phases, steps or reports. Open the record for which you want to sign steps/phases. On the left side you will find the phase and step navigator.  In our example, we will sign and lock the step "Inclusion".

1. When in a record, click on a step or phase. Click on the three dots that appear to the right.
2. Click on "Sign this phase" for phases or "Sign this step" for steps.
3. Enter your password to confirm your identity. You can choose to also lock the phase/step in the same instance, to prevent further data entry. Click "Sign" to confirm and to sign the phase or step. 

A warning will be displayed at the top of the data entry screen, warning the user that the current step has been signed and/or locked. It is also possible to unsign a step/phase.

Please note that for reports, you can only sign a report step or the entire report.

Dropping signature

A signature on the form will be automatically dropped in the following events:

• changes to the data. In this case a warning message will be shown and this event will be logged in the Audit Trail:

The signee is the person who is signing the phase/step. Please note that the signee will be notified only if a specific notification is set up.

• changes to the form structure (e.g. adding a new field). A warning message will be shown:

If a field is deleted, the signature will remain and no warning message will be shown.

Lock or unlock a phase, step or report.

If you have lock rights, you can also choose to separately lock or unlock a phase , step or report by choosing the "Unlock this phase" or "Unlock this step" option. See Lock phases and steps.

Please note that for reports, you can only lock or unlock a report step or the entire report.

Note: steps, phases and reports with pending queries cannot be signed and/or locked. Upon trying to, a warning  message will appear urging you to close the open queries before signing.

If a phase, step or report is already signed a new query cannot be added until the form is unsigned. The option to add a query will not be present on the signed phase, step or report.