Ten highlights from the Docusign Developer Conference

And that’s a wrap! The inaugural Docusign Developer Conference is in the books. For our first year, we’re incredibly humbled by the outpouring of support and interest from all of you. Over the course of the two days, you collectively signed up for 1,071,660 minutes of content. Over a million minutes! Sorry, let me pick my jaw up off the floor. To see so much interest across our various methods of advancing your organization’s digital transformation inspires us to continue to innovate across our developer roadmap, from smart agreements to citizen developer tools to world class APIs. 

Here are ten highlights we didn’t want you to miss: 

Decoding bias in artificial intelligence

What an amazing conversation between Jessica Ferguson and Dr. Joy Boulamwini. As innovators, changemakers, coders, visionaries and developers, our responsibility is immense. To be able not only to see a problem and solve it, but to do so in a manner that protects and empowers all users, is a must. There’s so much that we wish we could optimize, but when we sit down and code, we can be the change that we want to see in the world—both in the office as we create our custom processes, and in the world as we build accountable practices to represent all. It was so refreshing as well as humbling to hear Joy speak and really impart her wisdom into our work. 

Build an integration in 15 minutes or less

What stood out in this session was just how easy it is to get started with Docusign APIs. With the amount of information in the Developer Center, and our feedback mechanisms to ensure that we are listening to our developer audience, it really makes for a quick path forward. While seemingly complex and a bit scary to think about, with tools like the Quickstart, the work required isn't actually that overwhelming. 

Seven lines of code to build a client-side integration

Seven. No, we’re not talking about the name of George Costanza’s firstborn (or desired name, that is), it's the number of lines of code that it takes to bring Docusign into your client-side application. With the forthcoming client-side JavaScript SDK, you can tap into eSignature, Click, ID Verification, Monitor and more to surface Docusign applications towards an easy-to-use (and easy-to-code) user experience that spans the Agreement Cloud. So when we say we’re trying to improve the developer experience so that you can easily take the next steps in your agreement journey, the client-side JavaScript SDK is a continuation of that commitment. Fill out this form if you’re interested in early access.

Early returns on our new Recipient Connect feature

Recipient Connect highlighted what makes developing software so worthwhile. We were able to partner with our customers to scope what to put into the product, see them put the feature into a production environment, and then not only see business efficiency gains, but also use case expansion and new business opportunities. 

Creating digital transformation through multi-API integrations

Hearing from Luis and David over at Informa Software was a refreshing look at how building on the Docusign platform empowers partners to create new solutions. Luis gave us a great look into how Informa was able to solve a problem for the timeshare industry and scale that solution to new industries. David then came back to show us how Informa did it by leveraging the eSignature and CLM APIs. 

Your work your way with General Networks

Sometimes it's not just about how to solve a problem, but about what the future you want to create looks like. The session on customizing a Docusign and ServiceNow integration hit on just that. While prebuilt integrations (and Docusign has over 350 of them) are a great starting place for connecting your applications together, what do you do if the use case that you need between two business-critical applications isn’t covered by a prebuilt integration? That’s exactly what Todd Withers and PJ Schwartz from General Networks highlighted: -how to take control to get what you need from your applications and how to leverage multiple APIs to pull it together. 

Supporting the rise of the citizen developer

We featured self-serve tools in many sessions that provide simplified automations that drive an accelerated time to value for organizations. Solving for both the user and centralized IT and development, tools like Agreement Actions can enable organizations not only to create customized processes, but to do so on a platform that is enterprise-grade. When you add to it the citizen developer language of Apps Script and surface the Docusign eSignature API via a library (available upon request), citizen developers can go so far as to customize Google Workspace. 

Agreements go beyond documents into data 

We’ve been using documents on our computers for years, and frankly the fact that they are all designed and centered on the sheets of paper that were ubiquitous before the digital age always felt natural. To hear Kamal’s vision about the transformation of structured data that looks like a sheet of paper into a digital object that unlocks the value of not just the content but also its intent was eye-opening. The possibilities of this, and what it means for the developer community over the next few years, are exciting to think about. 

The award winner

The eSignature REST API has won multiple awards over the years, most recently being the 2021 Best Business Software API. When you think about Docusign, you probably think eSignature. Our eSignature API is used in roughly 60% of Docusign transactions, so it’s naturally a great place to start when you think about custom experiences with Docusign. Many of you agreed, as some of our most popular sessions centered on eSignature, from Tabs to Mobile to the 101 and 201 sessions. 

Coding for impact with the Good Code Hackathon

The 2021 Good Code Hackathon brought together developers from around the world to code for good. Hearing from this year’s winners and seeing the impact that code has on organizations as well known, and as important, as the Jane Goodall Foundation is inspiring. 

And these highlights don't even include the awesome new innovations we introduced, from the API Usage Center to the client-side JavaScript SDK to API Request Builder, which is fresh from our Developer Center team on exploring our APIs using a block-based UI. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us at the Docusign Developer Conference! We look forward to you being a vital part of the future of what Agreements look like. If you missed all of the action live, catch the session recordings here.

Additional resources

• Docusign Developer Center

• @DocuSignAPI on Twitter

• Docusign for Developers on LinkedIn

• Docusign for Developers on YouTube

• Docusign Developer Newsletter