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While working on a DocuSign embedded signing process (which has worked in the past), I noticed that after signing the document the 'event' parameter was missing from the 'returnUrl' I was being sent back to.

The returnUrl looks like:

http://www.example.com/index.php?param1=value1 ... &param10=value10

The parameters were being passed on returning from signing, but no event=signing_complete parameter was being added. I tried removing the parameters, and suddenly the event parameter returned.

After further experimentation, I discovered that the returnUrl parameter has a 500 character limit. Anything more is truncated. This will also truncate the event parameter from the end of the returnUrl.

This does not seem to documented in the DocuSign REST API documentation (https://www.docusign.com/p/RESTAPIGuide/Content/REST%20API%20References/Post%20Recipient%20View.htm).

So, is this a feature or a bug? Other than using session or database storage, is there a recommended workaround for the 500-character limit?

Jeremy
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1 Answers1

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There might be some limits to the URL that is being passed in by the web servers themselves. I have not seen a lot of people hit this limit because probably most of the time folks do not put that much information into a return URL.

If you are coming from software that has session state you can use the following technique: 1) add the information you were previously sending via URL to a dictionary or a collection object and save it in the session on the server. Follow the best security practices for that one so that this information can't be easily accessed (there is a ton of material on how to do this properly and it's probably beyond this answer) 2) in the url instead of all the keys and values just provide the key to your collection. 3) upon return from DocuSign look up the object and retrieve the passed in information.

If there is no state in your software you can try using other properties of the envelope to put the additional information such as envelope custom fields. You can populate those on create and you can retrieve the information back when the control comes back to your software. Here is the article about custom fields: https://www.docusign.com/p/RESTAPIGuide/RESTAPIGuide.htm#REST API References/Get Envelope Custom Field Information.htm

mikebz
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    According to [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/417142/what-is-the-maximum-length-of-a-url-in-different-browsers) and the HTTP standards, there shouldn't be any limit. Although 2,048 seems like a safe limit. So, 500 seems a bit short. I've already resorted to using session storage instead. – Jeremy Feb 02 '15 at 14:05