Better Together: DocuSign, Nintex, and RSI: How DocuSign provides the missing ingredient for partners building end-to-end contract management solutions using Microsoft technology

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DocuSign–a history of efficiency and security

DocuSign has a long history of working to change how business gets done by empowering customers to send, sign, and manage documents using a device-agnostic platform. A highly specialized partner, DocuSign’s narrow focus has helped to establish them as leaders in eSignature solutions.

While very useful in automating certain contractual processes, many leading HR solutions are otherwise hamstrung by the need to print, sign, and scan contracts–a process that, in certain regions, even requires original, signed paper copies to be filed and stored. These processes are wasteful, inefficient, and can delay crucial projects. DocuSign’s eSignature solution provides the services necessary to circumvent these manual processes, allowing customers to sign and send key contractual documents online.

DocuSign’s Electronic Signatures are legally binding in most business and personal transactions in almost every country in the world–complying with the US Federal ESIGN Act and Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) as well as international laws and statutes. Their eSignature solution is built to meet the most rigorous security industry certification standards, using the strongest commercially available data encryption available.

DocuSign’s peerless security standard has made their solution viable among notoriously stringent public-sector customers, who demand both world-class security and availability. This commitment to security is reflected in DocuSign’s FedRAMP (the Federal Risk and Management Program) Authorization for their DocuSign Federal solution–a distinction currently granted to only 86 Cloud Service Providers in total as of August 2017.

“Our solutions have carrier-grade availability and we take security extremely seriously. We have completed our FedRAMP Authorization and our solutions are HIPPA compliant.” – Angie Halderman, Global Strategic Alliances Director, DocuSign

The missing ingredient–integrating with Microsoft and partner solutions

As the trusted leader in the eSignature space, DocuSign has a long history of successful partner-to-partner (P2P) efforts within the Microsoft partner ecosystem. This is no accident, as DocuSign has worked hard to provide partners with application program interfaces (APIs) that allow DocuSign’s technology to seamlessly integrate with popular, complimentary solutions that often leverage Microsoft technology.

Through a long-term strategic partnership with Microsoft, DocuSign has made its eSignature applications widely available from within Office 365, Dynamics 365, and SharePoint–eliminating the need for customers to jump from application to application and strengthening the value of customers’ existing Microsoft solutions.

“DocuSign is integrated across the Microsoft technology stack, having developed connectors for Office 365, Dynamics, SharePoint, SharePoint Online, and Outlook. Additionally, we are currently ramping up and familiarizing ourselves with Flow as we have seen a strong interest in the product among business users.” – Angie Halderman, Global Strategic Alliances Director, DocuSign

By integrating simply and effectively with modern business solutions, DocuSign has turned themselves into an effective P2P enabler–offering their technology to partners as a key ingredient in designing end-to-end business solutions. Having long designed technology with integration in mind, DocuSign has been able to focus on doing what they do best while leveraging their extensive partner channel to cover gaps inherent to their organizational focus.

Building a partner channel with Microsoft

As a member of the Microsoft partner community, DocuSign has found success working with Microsoft to scale their solution to their customers. Partnering closely with DocuSign, Microsoft has helped bring partners into DocuSign’s channel, understanding that their technology fits well with large partners familiar with Office 365 whose customers require eSignature services.

“Microsoft is great at helping facilitate partnerships and expanding our channel when we both feel that there is a natural fit. They have been very involved in aligning us with large reseller partners such as SHI and Softchoice who are familiar with Office 365 and Microsoft technologies. We are also leveraging the Azure platform to help us expand our international reach and growth” – Angie Halderman, Global Strategic Alliances Director, DocuSign

While DocuSign has had success integrating their technology with solutions developed by larger partners, they still see untapped opportunity working with smaller, more boutique partners within the Microsoft partner ecosystem. With the strength of their APIs and integration, DocuSign knows their technology can play a role in industry-targeted and line of business (LOB) solutions developed by smaller Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), and they have proven open to helping bring these solutions to market as well.

“We are always interested in working with other Microsoft partners to create bundled and packaged solutions that we can sell as a single offering. Moving forward, we see a huge opportunity to work with Microsoft to drill into regional and boutique SI partners with industry-specific expertise and insight that they can pair with our technology to build repeatable solutions that address business needs within key industries that we can even sell from our own online marketplace.” – Angie Halderman, Global Strategic Alliances Director, DocuSign

Making it real–Nintex and RSI

Supply chain manager Restaurant Services, Inc. (RSI) provides procurement, distribution, and logistics services for more than 7000 Burger King® restaurants nationwide. In 2014, RSI determined their contract management process resulted in time delays, paper waste, inefficient processing, limited visibility, and high shipping costs. Additionally, compliance gaps were often created when manual workflows were not routed to all required departments. As RSI looked to expand, it was crucial to more efficiently manage its contracts to achieve this growth and effectively support existing suppliers and customers.

Already utilizing Microsoft solutions for most aspects of their IT infrastructure, RSI selected SharePoint for both contract storage and to digitize their workflow process in the updated contract management solution referred to by RSI as their Contract Center. Working in tandem with DocuSign engineers to design and validate the technical approach to their solution, all existing paper documents were scanned and stored in SharePoint while Nintex Workflow was utilized to manage all workflow activities with DocuSign APIs integrated throughout the contract management process.

By taking advantage of the expertise their partners could bring to bear, RSI was able to implement a 100 percent digital, end-to-end solution for managing all Burger King® supplier contracts, worth USD3 billion per year in procurement transactions. Their success provides a blueprint for other partners looking to similarly leverage the power and flexibility afforded by DocuSign’s eSignature API–which partners are encouraged to test in a free sandbox environment available at their DocuSign Developer Center.