FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Plain answers to the questions operators and quality teams ask most.
Is Obsign a quality management system?
No, deliberately. Your QMS owns manufacturing, batch records and release. Obsign owns the consignment layer your QMS does not reach: permits, balances, shipment documents, dispatch control, and the evidence trail.
Do you check uploaded documents?
Yes, at the door. Every upload, internal or counterparty, must be a PDF, PNG or JPEG by its actual bytes, is checked against known malicious signatures, and is rejected and never stored if flagged. A stored file that is not marked clean is never served. Obsign does not read or judge the contents of a document.
Can Obsign be used in a regulated, GxP process?
Not by us, and no supplier can do that for you. Obsign is a supporting system of record. We provide a GAMP 5 and CSA-aligned validation pack, an assessment against 21 CFR Part 11 and EU Annex 11, and an accelerator that helps your quality team validate Obsign for your use quickly. Validating the system for your intended use remains your quality function's responsibility, as it is for any computerised system.
Can one permit cover several shipments?
Yes. A permit holds an authorised quantity, and every consignment draws against the same running balance. Its page shows the full drawdown history and every linked shipment. The balance drops at dispatch, and a spent permit is marked exhausted.
What stops an expired permit or licence being used?
Dispatch is blocked if a permit is expired as at the planned dispatch date, or is otherwise not active on the register, or if the site operating licence is missing or expired. Licences raise a standing warning 90 days before they expire; permits, certificates and licences also raise a notification 30 days before.
Can Obsign help with permit applications and returns?
Yes. From a planned export it prints a permit application pack holding everything it has for the application, to copy onto the issuing authority's own form; it does not submit anything for you. For any period it produces a returns pack: exports and imports by country and substance, in product and base quantity, with a usage statement for each permit.
Why track a destination's import estimate?
Because it can run out. Each importing country sets an annual estimate for a controlled substance, and import permits are not meant to go beyond it. In 2025 Germany's estimate for medical cannabis was used up in the autumn, and new import permits were held until a higher estimate was confirmed. Obsign tracks each destination's estimate against every planned and dispatched shipment, and alerts at 80, 90 and 100 per cent, so you see the ceiling coming before you commit a quantity to a buyer.
Can importers use Obsign?
Yes. Choose that your organisation mainly imports when you sign up. An inbound consignment is held against your own import certificate, received under two signatures and drawn down to the milligram, then closed on receipt or quarantined. Importers you ship to need no account at all: they upload through a secure link and can check any sealed dossier.
Where is our data hosted?
Your data is stored in the EU, in Ireland, in a managed PostgreSQL database with private document storage. The application itself is served from the UK.
Does Obsign read or extract data from uploaded documents?
No, deliberately. It fingerprints them, guards them, and proves they have not changed. A person on your team remains the only thing that can say a document satisfies a requirement.
Is this blockchain?
It uses the same cryptography a blockchain is built from, hash chaining, without the blockchain. Every record is fingerprinted into the next, so any alteration is detected and the exact record named, verifiable on demand. It skips the distributed ledger, which adds cost and data-protection friction without adding anything an inspector asks for.
How does data get in?
Through the registers and uploads, deliberately human-entered at the control points; your counterparties upload their documents through single-use secure links. Shipments can also be imported from your dispatch or stock system's export, one row per shipped batch, and each becomes a draft that passes the same checks as one built by hand. From the moment data is in, the database refuses an over-balance, expired or mismatched release, and the history is provable.
What happens to our data if we leave, or if Obsign disappears?
Your records are exportable in open, machine-readable formats on request, documents always download as the original files, and the audit trail verifies from its own content, so the integrity of your record does not depend on Obsign.
Do you integrate with our other systems?
Today Obsign imports shipments from your existing system's goods-out or CSV export, and exports your records, returns and audit trail as CSV and PDF. Deeper integrations are built around a customer's actual systems, not speculatively, and follow real customer need.