FAP Partner Onboarding at a Glance

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

In Scope

Out of Scope

In Scope

Out of Scope

Architecture Building Blocks

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.

Standards & Protocols

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.

Reuse & variants

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).

All our FAPs are open source - find the code for the Partner Onboarding FAP here.

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.