Audit Trail and Signing Certificate
Every action taken on a contract — from creation to final signature — is recorded in a tamper-evident audit trail. When all signers complete the session, E-SignSeal generates a signing certificate that summarizes the signing events in a human-readable format and appends it as the final page of the sealed PDF.
Audit tab showing timestamped event log for a completed contract
The Audit trail
Open a contract and select the Audit tab to view the event log.
What is recorded
Event | When it is logged |
|---|
Envelope created | Sender submits the New Contract wizard |
Signer notified | Each signer's invitation is dispatched |
Signing session opened | Signer selects the signing link |
OTP sent | Signer requests the one-time passcode |
OTP verified | Signer enters the correct OTP code |
OTP failed | Signer enters an incorrect OTP (up to 3 attempts) |
Document reviewed | Signer reaches the end of the document during the consent stage |
Consent given | Signer checks the legal consent checkbox |
Signature captured | Signer submits their draw or type signature |
Reminder sent | Sender or system sends a reminder notification |
Contract voided | Sender or admin voids the envelope |
Contract declined | A signer declines to sign |
Contract completed | Last signer submits; PDF generation triggered |
PDF attached | Sealed PDF auto-attached to the Jira issue |
Audit event fields
Each event row shows:
Event type — a plain-English label (for example, "Signature captured")
Actor — the Jira user who performed the action, or "System" for automated events
Timestamp — date and time in UTC (ISO 8601 format)
IP address — for signer actions (OTP verification, consent, signature capture)
The audit log is append-only. Events cannot be modified or deleted, even by Workspace Admins.
The signing certificate
For Completed contracts, select the Certificate tab to view the signing certificate.
Certificate tab showing signing certificate summary for a completed contract
The certificate displays:
Contract title and Envelope ID
Template name
Linked Jira issue key and summary
Completed at timestamp (UTC)
Signers table — each signer's Jira display name, email, OTP verification timestamp, and signature capture timestamp
Document fingerprint — a SHA-256 hash of the contract document content at the time of signing, confirming the document was not altered between send and signing
Certificate in the PDF
When you download the sealed PDF (or retrieve the auto-attached file from the Jira issue), the last page is a formatted version of the signing certificate. This page is generated by E-SignSeal and is included in the PDF's embedded signature metadata, making it detectable if the PDF is tampered with after generation.
Using the audit trail for compliance
The audit trail supports common e-signature compliance requirements:
Identity verification — the OTP step provides evidence that each signer had control of their Jira-registered email at the time of signing.
Consent — the audit log records when each signer scrolled to the end of the document and checked the consent checkbox.
Non-repudiation — the document fingerprint in the certificate allows you to verify that the signed document has not changed since it was presented to signers.
Timestamp integrity — all timestamps are server-generated in UTC and cannot be altered by client-side actions.
If you need to produce an audit record for a legal or compliance review, download the sealed PDF (which includes the certificate page) and export the audit event log from the Audit tab using the Export CSV button.
Next steps