A signature is only proof if the document behind it never changes. That is why DivePilot locks a template's PDF as soon as the template has signatures, and why a new version of a waiver is always a new template.

The document lock

Once a template has a signature record, Upload PDF and Replace PDF disappear from its card. The edit dialog shows Document locked instead of the upload field: "This template has 3 signatures. Its PDF, title, organisation and version cannot change, so the signed records stay intact. To use a new document, create a new template with a different version number."

Only a completed signature counts: signed online, an uploaded or photographed copy, or an in-person confirmation. A signing link that was sent but never used, or one that expired, does not lock anything. The lock also applies to a template that has no PDF yet, so upload the PDF before you request the first signature.

For every online signature on a template with a PDF, DivePilot also stores a fingerprint of the PDF as it was at that moment. It appears as Document hash on the signed record.

What is locked

Title, organisation and version are locked together with the PDF, the same way - only once a signature is completed - and the edit dialog shows them as plain text, because a signed record shows the template's current values. Validity, language, status, Medical waiver and General waiver stay editable after signatures exist. Two things need care:

  • To relabel a document, create a new template with the new title, organisation or version instead; the signed records keep pointing at the old one.
  • Changing Validity (days) affects future signatures only. Each existing record keeps the expiry date it received when it was signed.

Publish a new version

There is no version history and no link between an old and a new template. A new version is a separate template:

  1. In Settings, then Waivers, press Add waiver.
  2. Enter the same Title and Organisation with a new Version, for example 2025 instead of 2024.
  3. Upload the new PDF and set validity, Medical waiver and General waiver as on the old one.
  4. Press Add waiver.
  5. Edit the old template and set Status to Inactive, or set its General waiver to Not required.
  6. If a course template's Additional waivers or a dive group's Extra waivers for this group list the old template, swap it for the new one there too.

Who has to sign again

Signatures belong to the template they were collected on. The customer header, the dashboard, the trip's waiver check and the expiry notification all look at each template separately. So:

  • A customer who signed only the old version counts as missing the new one as soon as the new one is required for them, whether through General waiver, a course or a dive group.
  • If the old version stays active and required, customers need both.
  • Old signatures stay on the customer's Waivers tab with their own status and remain readable.

Nothing is sent automatically when you add a version. Request the new one from each customer, one at a time, as described in Request a waiver signature. The Missing waivers panel on the dashboard, which covers trips today and tomorrow, and the Waiver check of each dive group show who is still missing it.

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