How to check status of a document with DocuSign?

Question

We are going to use DocuSign API to sign our documents. Once document is uploaded to get signed/declined, we have TWO ways to get the status of the document (signed or declined):

1. Checking the status of document by repeatedly calling DocuSign API from our WCF service (which is limited to 1000 calls per hour, but we can limit it to 1 call per document per hour)
2. Sending a public URL with the envelope which will get called whenever the status of document is changed? (https://www.docusign.com/p/RESTAPIGuide/Content/REST%20API%20References/Send%20an%20Envelope.htm) This method requires updating a parameter called 'eventNotification' with the public URL on our environment.

I would like to know which one is better approach architecture wise? On an average we expect 50 documents a month to get signed.

Answer 1

In general, best practice would be approach #2 -- i.e., configure DocuSign Connect such that it automatically sends a notification (to the endpoint you specify) each time one of the specified Envelope events occurs. There are lots of advantages to this approach, including:

• using Connect doesn't count against your 1000 API calls per hour limit
• notifications will be sent/received in (relative) real-time
• using Connect doesn't require that you go through the "API Certification" process

The DocuSign Connect Service Guide (https://10226ec94e53f4ca538f-0035e62ac0d194a46695a3b225d72cc8.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/connect-guide.pdf) describes how to configure/implement Connect. You'll need to do a little bit of custom development to build the "listener" that will receive and parse the XML notifications from DocuSign, but this is straight-forward and sample code (in several different languages) is available on GitHub.

Note: If you want DocuSign to automatically send notifications for all envelopes (for the senders you specify), you can just configure Connect at the Account-level via the DocuSign web console (Preferences >> Connect), rather than having to specify eventNotification as part of each Create Envelope API request. If you use this approach, then any future configuration changes can be made simply via the DocuSign web console (Preferences >> Connect), rather than having to make code changes. i.e., if you want to add notifications for other events, include or exclude the document(s) themselves, etc.