When to find a partner and when to build yourself?

This is a question that every software developer should ask themselves as part of their pipeline planning. We have a long list of ideas in the Konnexsion pipeline. Some of those will be capabilities that we want to build ourselves and others we will partner with others. Software companies use 3rd party products behind the scenes all the time. Our infrastructure is hosted within Amazon AWS services. It would not be possible for us to operate without the enterprise scale-ability that AWS provides. However it is not the 'hidden' partners we talk about today. Our focus is on integrations that provide increased functionality and provide our customers a richer experience. When we have chosen to increase Konnexsion's functionality, in this case with eSignature, we look to see what is available on the market. It is at this point we need to decide if we want to build similar capabilities within the Konnexsion's core, or find a good partner. We will want to always build functionality as part of our core offer if the capability is:

• unique to Konnexsion.
• integral to many modules across Konnexsion.
• not widely available to use in a transparent and competitive market.
• 3rd Party alternatives will not integrate transparently providing a seamless user experience

We will look to partner if the capability:

• is offered by multiple providers in a competitive market.
• whilst important to our customers, is supplementary to the Konnexsion offer.
• itself has specific legislative obligations which needs ongoing attention.
• provides us with API (Interface Connections) that enable us to build a solution that is friendly to our users.

Why is eSignature suitable for Partnering?

For eSignature there are many providers in the market. Of course there are many differences with each provider having their own specific capabilities. For eSignature we felt that that it was important to use a 3rd party product as we wanted to separate the legally binding signing process from Konnexsion itself. This with the aim of increasing our customers confidence of the legal merit of an electronically signed document. What was very important to us, with any electronic Signature capability was the ability to retain and store the signed legally enforceable document.

Does integration result in a less than optimal experience?

Far from it. In fact one of our key decision criteria when choosing an integration partner is being able to design a fully transparent and integrated user experience. With Signable we believe we were able to do this. We have been able to complement the way our customers work within Konnexsion with the eSignature capability that Signable brings. There are a number of factors we consider when determining if the user experience will be adequate. Each of these we were able to achieve with Signable

• Seamless setup process. The full setup of the eSignature account is instant and fully automated all from within the Konnexsion settings page.
• End to end transparency. We cannot expect our users to have to log on to Konnexsion and switch between other applications in order to complete their workflow. With Signable our users can select the document, add recipients, monitor status and finally obtain the signed document all from within Konnexsion.
• Integrated billing. We do not want our customers to be obliged to sign up to 3rd parties and take out separate subscriptions. When we partner with Signable we agree up front all commercials which allows us to include document signing as part of our Customers own Konnexsion subscription.

What other Integration considerations are there?

There are a number of other aspects we consider when choosing to partner for Integration.

Security & Data protection.

The 3rd Party product needs to have a strong data and interface security capability. It is important that we are able to locked down and fully protect our customers data directly through API. Our customer's data needs to be protected and 'sandboxed' from each other. We look for a provider that allows us to setup separate customer accounts that align directly with our own account structure. With Signable we were able to achieve this.

Partnership

It's very important that we are able to work jointly with our integration partners for mutual advantage. We discuss our integration objectives and goals and ensure they are aligned to our partners roadmap. Have a look at Signable's API Partner page and you will see Konnexsion as an example of what can be achieved.

Signable

We believe with Signable we have been able to meet all our Integration goals. We are proud of the seamless user experience we have been able to achieve through our partnership. As a result we think we have added significant value to Konnexsion as a whole. Why don't you go and have a look.

• As an existing customer you should find that we have included a small number of Signature Envelopes each month so you can validate the experience
• If you are not yet a user then why don't you register and join one of our trial programmes.