A payments infrastructure startup watched new integration partners sign up, then stall for weeks before their first API call. We automated the whole onboarding path — sandbox keys, quickstart docs, a dedicated Slack channel — and cut time to first call by 78%.
Typical results
3 days
Signup to first call
48 hrs
Max time to stall outreach
86%
Partners reaching production
Figures reflect typical results for this kind of automation.
The challenge
Every new partner meant a manual ritual: an engineer issued sandbox keys, someone emailed docs, and a Slack channel appeared days later — if anyone remembered. Partners who hit a snag went silent, and stalled integrations surfaced weeks too late. Time from signup to first successful API call had stretched past two weeks, and promising partners quietly gave up.
Before and after
Signup to first API call
−80%Partners reaching production
+59%Stalled integration detection
−93%The automation
We built a Make workflow that fires the moment a partner signs up: sandbox keys are issued through the platform API, a personalized quickstart with code samples lands in their inbox, and a shared Slack channel opens with the right solutions engineer already inside. The system then watches sandbox activity daily — a partner who hasn't made a successful call within 48 hours triggers automatic outreach with context on exactly where they stopped.
How it works
- 01
Signup triggers provisioning
The moment a partner registers, Make issues sandbox keys through the platform API and logs the account in the CRM.
- 02
Docs and channel in minutes
A personalized quickstart with code samples goes out by email, and a shared Slack channel opens with a solutions engineer inside.
- 03
Sandbox activity monitored
The workflow checks each partner's API logs daily, tracking progress toward their first successful call.
- 04
Stalls trigger human outreach
No successful call within 48 hours? The assigned engineer gets an alert showing exactly which request failed last.
- 05
Activation reported weekly
A live dashboard tracks every partner's funnel stage, so the team sees activation trends at a glance.
Starts from
- Partner signup
- Sandbox API activity
Delivers
- Keys & quickstart delivered
- Dedicated Slack channel
- Stall alert to engineer
The impact
Time from signup to first successful API call dropped 78% — from 15 days to about 3. Stalled integrations get engineer outreach within 48 hours instead of being discovered a month later, and the share of partners reaching production integration climbed from 54% to 86%.
Questions about this automation
What happens in the first minutes after a partner signs up?
The flow issues sandbox API keys through the platform's own API, creates the partner record in the CRM, emails a quickstart with code samples in the partner's chosen language and opens a shared Slack channel with the assigned solutions engineer inside. The partner can make a first test call without waiting for anyone.
How does the flow know a partner is stuck?
Once a day it reads each partner's sandbox API logs and records progress, such as keys used, requests made and the first successful response. If no successful call appears within 48 hours, the assigned engineer gets an alert showing the last failed request and its error, so the outreach starts with a specific fix.
Can the team see onboarding progress across all partners?
Yes. A dashboard places every partner in a funnel stage, from signed up to first call to production traffic, and a weekly summary shows how many moved forward and where others stalled. The stall threshold and stages are adjustable settings. It is a multi-step build, usually rolled out in stages, starting with key provisioning and the quickstart email.