-
-
EduSign Logo
-
-
-
Inspiration
Permission slips for school field trips, proms, and clubs are archaic, requiring students to take home pieces of paper to their parents and get them signed. If either party forgets, the student can be forced to miss out on an activity. It can be even worse when families need to pay for events like field trips, where physical checks can easily be forgotten.
What it does
EduSign uses the DocuSign API to seamlessly manage permission slips between teachers, parents, and students.
1) Sign Up: Students sign up in the app and invite their parents using temporary credentials. Additional siblings can then request to join the family when they sign up.
2) Connect: On the website, teachers can connect to their Canvas and DocuSign accounts. In two clicks, they can send out documents to all their students to be signed with a due date and an optional secure payment requirement.
3) Sign: Students must sign first, and parents can get AI-generated summaries of long documents so they know what they are agreeing to. If there is a required payment, the parent pays it before signing. Everybody can remind each other through push notifications or through voice calls using Twilio. No one gets left behind, and everyone holds each other accountable.
How we built it
The mobile app is built in React Native to allow cross-platform compatibility between iOS and Android. The website is built in HTML, CSS, and JS. The Canvas LMS API is used to automatically get a teacher's courses and determine which students belong to which class. Expo is used to handle push notifications and other native-device tasks, while the Twilio API is used to send reminder calls to parents. Of course, the DocuSign eSignature API handles the actual signing, and the DocuSign Payments API allows for secure transactions through Stripe. Every call between our front and backend is secured with Firebase's JWTs to ensure signatures stay secure.
Challenges we ran into
Integrating between so many different platforms proved difficult as each platform (Canvas, DocuSign, and EduSign) has a unique way to identify it's users.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We are very proud of our simple and easy-to-use UI and the clean implementation of the DocuSign API. We genuinely believe this product could be useful for an institution like our school district.
What we learned
We learned how useful the DocuSign API can be in addressing seemingly impossible logistical issues, as the ease of use allows implementations with widely-used frameworks like React Native and Firebase.
What's next for EduSign
In a 2.0 version, we would like to integrate with Canvas OAuth rather than just API tokens, but this requires working with an institution directly, like our school district.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.