Merge fields
TrueSign links Salesforce and the signed document in two opposite directions, at two different moments. Confusing them is the number-one source of misunderstanding.
| Merge fields | Writeback | |
|---|---|---|
| Direction | Salesforce → document | Document → Salesforce |
| When | At send time | At signature completion |
| What it does | Pre-fills the document with record data | Retrieves what the signer entered and writes it onto a record |
| Where it is set | Template editor › Merge fields | The same editor › Writeback |
1. Where the value comes from
The Salesforce path (Account.Name, Amount, Description…) is read on the record the send starts from. Relationship paths are followed: from an Opportunity, Account.Industry does fetch the linked account's industry.
The value is formatted according to the org's sending locale (French by default):
- Amount →
24 500,00 €(thousands separator, symbol after the number in French) - Date →
05/03/2026— always with the leading zero, so a contract date cannot be read backwards - Checkbox →
Yes/No
2. Where the field lands — the two modes
This is the most structural setting, and the one that surprises people most often.
Anchor mode. You write a token in the document (for example {{client}}) and TrueSign replaces it with the value, exactly in place, keeping the surrounding text formatting.
Coordinate mode. You give a page and an X/Y position, and TrueSign prints the value at that point. See Field placement.
In both modes, TrueSign places only the value. It never writes "Client:" in front. The label must already exist in the document itself — your PDF or Word model carries it.
If you place five fields by coordinates on a blank page, you get five stacked values with no headings. That is not a malfunction: the source document is empty. DocuSign behaves the same way.
In practice: start from an already-written document that contains "Client:", "Amount:", and place the field to the right of that text — or use an anchor placed right after it.
A field with neither an anchor nor coordinates is simply ignored at send time.
3. Read-only or editable
- Read-only — the value is fixed. It is what the sender asserts: an amount, a legal name. The signer reads it, does not change it.
- Editable — the field is pre-filled but remains modifiable. This is the only case where writeback makes sense: there is a value to report back only if someone could change it.
4. Available types
| Type | Behaviour for the signer |
|---|---|
| Text | Free-form field |
| Date | A real date picker |
| Checkbox | Checked / unchecked — a checked Salesforce boolean arrives checked |
| Radio buttons | Single choice among a list of options |
| Dropdown | Single choice in a menu |
| Signature / Initials | Signature or initials zone |
A field can be hidden or disabled conditionally based on another field's value — see Conditional logic.
5. Input validation
Editable fields accept type validation: date, number, email or regular expression. A non-conforming entry is refused at signing time — the data coming back into Salesforce is clean.
Never map an amount or a date as "raw text": use the dedicated types, which format the value (24 500,00 €, 05/03/2026) before injection. The raw Salesforce value is not presentable in a contract.
6. Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Most frequent cause |
|---|---|
| Values appear with no heading | The source document does not contain the labels — see §2 |
| A field does not appear at all | Neither anchor nor coordinates set: the field is ignored |
| A relationship field comes out empty | The lookup is empty on the record (no linked account, for instance) |
| An expected value is empty | The field is not readable by the sender: a field masked by field-level security renders empty, it never leaks |