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Turn a project scope request into a signed contract

A scope request populates your services agreement template and goes out for signature without an account manager touching it.

When this happens

New form submission on your project scope request form

Do this

Generate a DocuSign envelope from your services contract template with the client as signer

One-directional. A submission triggers the action — nothing is written back into your form.

Agencies lose days between "yes, send the contract" and a contract actually arriving. The scope is already written down — it is sitting in the intake form the client filled in — but someone still copies it into a document and reformats the deliverables list.

This flow reads the intake straight into the agreement. Client name and company become the contracting party, deliverables and budget become the schedule of work, and DocuSign sends it. The account manager's job shrinks to reading the draft once, then stopping even that when the template settles.

Setting it up

  1. 1

    Publish your project scope request form and keep Expected Deliverables as a long-text field — it becomes the body of the contract schedule, so it needs room to breathe.

  2. 2

    In DocuSign, save your services agreement as a template with a single signer role named Client.

  3. 3

    Place text tabs on the agreement for the contracting company, the project name, the deliverables schedule, the commencement date and the fee.

  4. 4

    Set the deliverables tab to multi-line and give it enough height to hold a long list without truncating it.

  5. 5

    Create the Zap using formformform's New Submission trigger with the scope request form selected.

  6. 6

    Add the DocuSign create-envelope-from-template action, mapping Client Name and Email Address to the Client signer role.

  7. 7

    Map Project Name, Expected Deliverables, Budget (USD) and Desired Project Start Date into their matching tabs, then put the project name in the envelope subject so a client with three live jobs can tell the agreements apart.

  8. 8

    Submit a test scope request, read the generated agreement end to end, and only then enable the Zap.

What maps where

Using the Project Scope Request Form as the starting point. These are its real fields — swap in your own and the mapping works the same way.

Form fieldDocuSign
Client NameSigner name on the services agreement
Email AddressRecipient email for the envelope
CompanyContracting party tab in the agreement preamble
Project NameProject reference tab and the envelope subject
Expected DeliverablesSchedule of work text tab
Budget (USD)Fee tab in the commercial terms

Variations worth knowing

Hold larger contracts for review

Filter on Budget (USD). Below your threshold the agreement goes straight to the client; above it, route the envelope to a partner as the first recipient so it is read internally before the client ever sees it.

Carry the client's own deadline

Map Project Deadline into a delivery-date tab so the agreement commits to the date the client actually asked for, rather than a vague "to be agreed". It makes later scope arguments considerably shorter.

If something isn't arriving

The deliverables list arrives as one unbroken paragraph.

DocuSign text tabs strip line breaks unless the tab is explicitly set to multi-line. Open the template, widen the tab, enable multi-line, save and resend a test submission before assuming the mapping is wrong.

Two envelopes went out for the same project.

The form was submitted twice and each submission is a separate trigger — there is no de-duplication. Void the extra envelope in DocuSign, and add a Zapier filter on Project Name if repeat submissions are common.

Frequently asked questions

Can the client change the scope before signing?

Not inside the envelope. The tabs you send are fixed unless you deliberately make them editable in the template. If the scope moves, void the envelope and send a corrected agreement from DocuSign.

What if the client wants to negotiate the fee?

Void the envelope in DocuSign, agree the number, then send a corrected agreement from the same template. Re-submitting the scope form would create a second envelope rather than updating the first one.

Can I use this for proposals rather than contracts?

Yes. Point the DocuSign action at your proposal template and map the same fields. The pattern does not change: scope comes in through the form, a signature request goes out from DocuSign.

Related automations

Build the form first

The automation needs somewhere to fire from. Publish a form, connect it once, and every submission from then on runs this flow.

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