Detailed information about signature device selection

While the demo version allows to use all devices to test them, you will need a special licence version, if you want to use tablet-pcs or other Wintab devices. Without matching licence, these devices will not be usable!

You can either ask StepOver directly, whether you have a matching licence (for example via the Service hotline) or you can check it yourself after the registration by clicking "Info" in the main menu to open the information window.

Here, take a look to the right center to see what kind of licence you're currently using.

In order to prevent users from using a wrong signature device (either on purpose or by mistake), eSignatureOffice offers the possibility to set different authorisation levels for different types of devices.

You can find this option in the administration menu in the "Signature Device" tab.

• By default the security level is set to "Medium" and so allows usage of all StepOver signature devices.
• By setting the level to "High", you're only allowing StepOver devices with internal encryption feature (and so higher data security). However, this option is hardly needed, because all products currently sold by StepOver do have this internal encryption, while only very old devices don't.
• If you wish to use third-party devices, you need to set the level to "Low", in order to access the options above this drop down menu. However, please be aware, that StepOver can guarantee neither the quality nor security of your signatures, when using devices of other manufacturers. 
  
  

If you set the security to low like described in the previous paragraph, you should check, if the device type of your choice is currently allowed at all. You can see this in the "Signature device" tab, too. Use this option to allow the user to use only very specific types of devices to sign, for example the touch screen of his tablet-pc instead of the mouse, too.

• Please take note, that these checkboxes prevent those types of devices from showing up in the device search instead of allowing them!
• Deactivate only those types of devices, which you don't want to use. Especially tablet-pcs sometimes offer a broad variety of devices to use.
• You can see, how selecting your signature device can look like, when none of the device types above is deactivated.
  
  

There are different ways to search for all available/allowed devices. Either go to the "Options" menu at the top of your screen and there click the "Select signature device" item. Another access to this feature is the button "Automatic configuration" in the "Signature device" tab of the administration menu.

This is a possible view you might encounter, when no device type has been deactivated and so you allow eSignatureOffice to offer all available signing devices.

In this case, we have one computer mouse, two electronic signing pens, one touchscreen and also one StepOver naturaSign Colour signature pad, which is connected by USB. The first four devices in this list are provided by only one tablet-pc.

• It's totally up to you, which of those you would select. However we strongly suggest using StepOver devices, in order to guarantee high levels of quality and security!
• If you are not sure which is the correct one, because several similar devices are shown (like in this example the two pens), then you can only resort to trial and error.
• So, just select one of the possible devices, confirm the configuration by clicking the "Next" button and afterwards try to sign a document with the device of your choice.
• If it works, you correctly selected your device.
• If it does not work, you have to go back to the device search, select another device and try to sign again until you have found, what you were looking for.
• You can differentiate the devices (especially StepOver devices, in case you connected multiple at once) by the bracketed numbers behind the name. These are either serial numbers or device numbers, which each device has to transmit to the operating system when it wants to communicate.
  
  

If not device is found at all, there are several possible reasons for this. The following lines will show you some of those possible reasons and also ways to check or even fix them.

Wrong licence type

Please check in the info dialog (see Step 1 of this chapter), if you're using the correct type of licence for the signing device of your choice, if you want to use either a tablet-pc or a Wintab device. In the demo versions, all of these devices will work and all StepOver devices will always work with all licence types.

Please check all settings as described in the previous paragraphs of this chapter and make sure, that the licence type as well as the security level and also the permission to use the device type are correct.

Technical defect (USB cable or USB port or the device itself)

Please try to connect your device to another USB port and with another USB cable. When any of these three things is damaged, normally the device screen won't light up at all and/or the little light on the signature pad either stays dark or it keeps slowly changing between red and green light.

Bad power supply

• In case you are using a laptop or tablet-pc, it is possible that your operating system will switch to an energy saving mode, which prevents using additional devices.
• USB ports of a laptop docking station will not be usable, if no power supply is connected to the station. So, please connect your signature device directly to the laptop or provice a power supply for the docking station.
• If you're using the signature pad via USB hub without additional power supply, this can lead to this limited power supply not being enough, especially when multiple devices are connected to this USB hub at the same time. So, please either use a self-powered USB hub and even better: connect the device directly to the computer, at best with a short and well isolated cable to guarantee stable and high power.
• USB cables, which are too long can be really difficult! Already 5m cables are not guaranteed to allow full functionality due to the nature of USB connections. We strongly recommend using only such cables, as were sold together with the device. 

Old eSignatureOffice version

Some device types might not be detected correctly by older versions of eSignatureOffice, because they possibly not have existed when this version was released. If you are not sure, please try downloading a new version from the StepOver website or if this is not possible or you don't know, which version you should use, please contact the StepOver customer support!