Form submission displays wrong signature

By: Eric scoles | Asked: 03/28/2024
ForumsCategory: General questionsForm submission displays wrong signature
Eric scoles asked 1 month ago

We have a time entry form that includes 2 signature fields (one for workers, one for supervisors), implemented using Formidable Digital Signature (version 3.0.3). We have observed multiple cases where the field displays the wrong signature image when the form entry is displayed.  Given these users: 

  • User A
  • Supervisor B
  • User C
  • Admin User D

...this is roughly what happens:

  1. User A submits time. They sign using the 'Draw it' mode.
  2. Supervisor B approves the time.
  3. Admin User D reviews the form entry for the time submission. It shows the signature image for another user (e.g. User C).

What we know: 

  • At a guess this is happening in at least 5% of cases where the 'Draw It' option was used.
  • User C may be someone who hasn't submitted a timecard in months.

What we do not know:

  • Have not at this time verified that the issue is restricted to the Draw It option.
  • We've had no reports from supervisors of the problem, so we don't know if the substitution happens before or after step 2, above.

On my to-do list to check: 

  • whether a given signature image is displayed only once. (This is what I expect to find.)
  • whether typed signatures are also substituted, or if this issue is limited to images.

Currently we're working around this problem by defaulting the signature field to the 'type it' option.  Can someone suggest areas to start looking for cause, or what other information we should be collecting to get to the bottom of this? 

1 Answers
Rob LeVineRob LeVine answered 1 month ago
The first thing to do is find a scenario that always demonstrates the problem. Then you can start adding and removing things until it gets better or worse. Start by either verifying with 100% certainty that none of your code snippets touch that field or disable all of them. If you have a reproducible case and you can't get to the bottom of it, contact S11 support (makers of FF) and give them all the information you have. I have to say that it's very suspicious that it happens sometimes and with type it vs. draw it. It feels more like user error than bug, but ya never know until you know.
Eric scoles replied 1 month ago

User error was the first thing I eliminated - A & C in my scenario are months apart (at the time A filed the bellwether case, C hadn't been employed by the college for 3 months), and there's no user action I can see that would allow one person's signature to be selected to replace another. (It wouldn't be a very useful signature field if there were.)

As far as I can tell, there is no consistent presentation. It appears at this time to be random. I have not been able to reproduce it in action (& if I'm right about the frequency, I'm looking at potentially a couple hours of testing to get one failure).

As far as I can tell there are no code snippets in use, but that's hard to tell for sure because I'm not the original developer, I don't have access to the original developer's documentation, and all source file timestamps were reset when the site was migrated from one server to another by the hosting provider.

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