This ”Partner Onboarding FAP“ provides a complete implementation of the onboarding lifecycle inside a federated ecosystem. The FAP is entirely implemented as a flow-based application executed on Orchestration Engine (ORCE) that acts solely as the execution environment, while the onboarding flow itself defines all business logic, configurations, integrations, and validation steps declaratively.
Purpose & Value
The “Partner Onboarding FAP” provides a trusted, interoperable process for organizations and users to join a federated ecosystem. It ensures mutual recognition of credentials (organization and participant), automates verification against federation rules, and provides a consistent onboarding journey across domains. The added value of this FAP lies in:
Interoperability
Solves the interoperability challenge of differing onboarding workflows between ecosystems.
Trust
Leverages Self-Sovereign Identity/Verifiable Credentials to enable decentralized trust and avoids single points of control.
Scalability
Reduces onboarding friction, increases trust in federations, and supports scalability for cross-border/cross-domain use cases.
Scope & Boundaries
Included in the Partner Onboarding FAP:
- Self-service onboarding wizard,
- Registration of organizations in the Catalogue (CAT),
- Creation of Organization Credentials (OCM) and Participant Credentials (PCM),
- Integration with Orchestration Engine (ORCE) for service lifecycle hooks,
- Initial authentication & authorization link (Auth/AA).
Excluded from the “Partner Onboarding FAP”:
- Deep legal identity verification beyond what is supported by existing SSI (Self-Sovereign Identity)/eIDAS (electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services) providers as well as
- Full lifecycle management after onboarding (handled by potential other FAPs).
This FAP builds as follows:
Feature-FAPs:
- Onboarding & Registration (umbrella pattern).
Micro-FAPs (examples):
- Onboarding Wizard: guided workflow for organization/user data collection.
- Organization Registration: issuance of Organization Credential (via OCM).
- Participant/User Registration: issuance of Participant Credential (via PCM).
- Credential Validation: check authenticity and validity of provided credentials.
- Federation Registration: register verified organization/user in federation catalogue (CAT).
- ORCE Hook: trigger orchestration workflows for new participants (scaling/parking).
XFSC Services:
- CAT (Catalogue) – central registry of services and organizations.
- OCM/PCM – organization and participant credential managers.
- AAS – authentication and authorization service.
- ORCE – orchestration hooks for resource lifecycle.
- Open-source tooling for SSI, VC, DIDComm, OIDC4VC.
The Partner Onboarding FAP adheres to
- W3C VC/VP: Credentials for organizations and users.
- OIDC4VC: S Standardized flows for credential issuance.
- DIDComm v2: Secure communication between participants.
- Gaia-X Trust Framework: Compliance, trust anchor, catalogue integration.
- eIDAS: Legal identity alignment where required.
- GDPR: Data minimization and consent during onboarding.
The FAP is designed to be used as follows:
Cross-domain Reuse:
- health (hospital onboarding),
- mobility (cross-border fleet providers),
- supply chain (manufacturers & logistics).
Reusable Modules:
- onboarding wizard,
- credential issuance flow,
- validation services.
Variants:
- light onboarding (SMEs/startups) vs. regulated onboarding (finance/health).
See How Partner Onboarding Works: Demo Video
Partner onboarding is the first step toward trusted collaboration in digital ecosystems. The FACIS Reference FAP shows how this process can be automated, secure, and interoperable – ensuring that organizations can confidently connect and collaborate across domains.
In this demo video, we walk you step-by-step through the first “Reference FAP for Partner Onboarding” and highlight the capabilities it unlocks once executed – from credential verification to seamless integration within the federation.