The DocuSign API Team at Dreamforce: A Complete Recap
It was four days of demos, sessions, workshops, more demos, happy hours, and then a few more demos. Dreamforce 2018 came and went in a flash, but quite a bit happened this year for the DocuSign Developer team. Heading into the week, we were excited to be showing up as a Peta Sponsor – the highest possible Trailhead sponsorship available -- and even so, we were overflowing with demo requests. We showcased new innovations for DocuSign for Salesforce, demoed DocuSign Gen preview and innovation from our new DocuSign company, SpringCM, and even ran hands-on tutorials on-site. But that’s not all. Let’s walk through the week.
What We Were Discussing
Well, Salesforce, of course. DocuSign for Salesforce was the name of the game this week. With DocuSign for Salesforce, you can accelerate contract turnaround times and simplify the customer experience. The number one eSignature app on the AppExchange, it is highly customizable – from workflow automation to custom buttons – and never requires you to leave the familiar environment of Salesforce.
Yes, we chatted about Salesforce code examples and our devs pitched their favorite features, but what we were particularly excited to discuss was our new DocuSign for Salesforce Apex Toolkit. Released just in time for Dreamforce, our new Apex Toolkit enables you to easily and quickly develop custom Salesforce solutions that use DocuSign technology like never before. The Apex Toolkit is a set of predefined Apex methods, classes, and utilities that encapsulate a set of the DocuSign eSignature API functionality. Similar to an SDK, the toolkit enables you to integrate DocuSign and Salesforce functionality into your Apex code. In fact, we built our new DocuSign for Salesforce – Core managed package (currently in preview) with the Apex Toolkit. It’s an enhancement of the current DocuSign for Salesforce, and works with both Salesforce and Salesforce Essentials. To get a preview of the Apex Toolkit, read the reference docs, see DocuSign for Salesforce guides, and get code examples, visit the DocuSign for Salesforce page in our Developer Center.
And with SpringCM recently joining the DocuSign family, we had a demo station to show off all the ways you can now integrate DocuSign with Salesforce, including document generation and management through the SpringCM platform.
Sessions
This year, we had technical breakouts and theater sessions for both administrators and developers.
Our first session, on Day 1, focused on how to accelerate agreements with DocuSign for Salesforce. Andy Tzou, Lead Product Manager, and Justin Craig, Training Delivery Manager, both from DocuSign talked to a packed room on the win-win results gained from adopting a faster and easier agreement solution. They shared best practices for accelerating agreements using DocuSign for Salesforce, and helped those in attendance understand how to identify the best use cases for adoption, then build a plan toward modernizing a System of Agreement.
Then, Andy went solo and led a packed theater session all about getting started with DocuSign for Salesforce. Using the DocuSign for Salesforce managed package, users can send a document for signatures from within Salesforce and guide signers in the signing process. The ease of implementing automation, customization, using Process Builder, and a more thorough agreement process was the name of the game during Andy’s session.
The next two sessions came on Day 2. The first was DocuSign Labs: Getting Started with our Apex Toolkit, and was led by Vineet Puranik, a senior developer on our DocuSign for Salesforce team. He discussed many of the possibilities with the new Apex Toolkit and went through code examples, a Q&A, and even offered up a sneak peek of what we’re building and working on.
Then later in the day we hosted eSignatures: Extending DocuSign for Salesforce Administrators. DocuSign for Salesforce Software Engineer Ken Naku took on this session and even got a couple very loud hollers and applause. (Go Ken!) He did an amazing job of displaying how our new features, namely Envelope Configurations and Process Builder integration, further enable process automation and customization.
On Thursday it was time for our final developer-focused session: DocuSign Labs: How Burning Man Successfully Enhanced its System of Agreement. Yep, you read that correctly. Burning Man joined us to discuss its modern System of Agreement -- optimized, automated, and powered by DocuSign.
dev:our
Enhanced for Dreamforce 2018, we had to bring back dev:our because it was such a big hit at Dreamforce 2017. We’re happy to say 2018 provided similar results. This year it was a lunch, learn, and build event for developers on the DocuSign API as well as DocuSign for Salesforce admins, with free lunch, an admin networking session, and discussions on DocuSign for Salesforce, including the Apex Toolkit. We had DocuSign developers and admins on-hand to answer everyone’s questions.
What Next?
Dreamforce 2018 was undeniably a success. We met new faces, saw familiar ones, gave almost 2,700 demos, and were fortunate to spread the word on DocuSign for Salesforce with so many attendees. For all of these reasons and more, we are already excitedly anticipating Dreamforce 2019. We are even planning to be at French Touch Dreamin’ in Paris to meet with the Salesforce developer community there in November. In the meantime, you can check out a few interesting success stories where customers have implemented DocuSign for Salesforce:
Covered California is the state-based marketplace where Californians can sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). As part of their continuing efforts to best serve Californians, Covered California engages with more than 14,000 agents, or entities, all of which need to sign agreements. That’s where DocuSign comes in. Covered California uses our eSignature API along with DocuSign for Salesforce to utilize a custom solution that integrates with Salesforce Communities. As part of their adoption, they now have an automated process for reviewing and approving agreements from the entities that provide Californians with access to ACA qualified health plans. Their new seamless approval process is trackable, secure, transparent, 100% automated, and available for you to learn all about, here.
BNY Mellon designed, developed, tested, and rolled out their DocuSign for Salesforce integration in just a matter of months. What they experienced as a result was a scalable system design, easy maintenance, and a seamless integration.
Retail Capital streamlined its agreement process with DocuSign for Salesforce and Custom Buttons. Just one month into its integration, the company was experiencing major benefits, including reduced costs and getting contracts returned much faster than before.
And of course, be sure to check out all of these great DocuSign API resources:
Developer Tools & Resources:
- DocuSign Developer Center
- DocuSign for Salesforce AppExchange managed package
- DocuSign for Salesforce page
- DocuSign Developer Newsletter Signup
- @DocuSignAPI on Twitter
- DocuSign for Developers Facebook Page
- DocuSign for Developers LinkedIn Page
- DocuSign Developer Blog
- SpringCM Developer Center
Admin Tools & Resources: