How Dwolla achieved a 90% customer collaboration success rate with Rocketlane

Nick Barton leads the Integration and Onboarding team at Dwolla, where he helps customers seamlessly implement the company’s API into their applications, a process that involves both technical guidance and structured project management. As an API-first company, onboarding at Dwolla isn’t just about timelines and tasks. It’s about deeply supporting customers through development, configuration, and approval cycles. Nick’s focus has been on creating a reliable, scalable onboarding experience that balances hands-on client collaboration with operational efficiency for his team. But as Dwolla scaled, they needed a better way to manage onboarding complexity. He wanted a tool that could replace spreadsheets, streamline collaboration, and eliminate the friction of tool sprawl and manual approval workflows.

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Life before Rocketlane

As Dwolla grew, the combination of spreadsheets, Slack, and a homegrown portal became increasingly difficult to manage and scale. The onboarding approach required heavy manual effort and constant coordination across multiple channels, none of which were centralized. Ultimately, this fragmented system slowed down execution and made it harder to support more customers without additional resources.

“We had an application section within our own product, where people would actually submit things for review to us. But it was hard to change because we needed to get on the product roadmap anytime we wanted to change something. It didn’t let the integration team actually have control over our own tool… so it was easy for that to get outdated.”

Disjointed project management setup

Before Rocketlane, Dwolla managed its onboarding projects using basic tools like Google Sheets. The project plans were lightweight, lacked structure, and saw minimal adoption from clients. As a result, visibility was low and it became difficult for both internal teams and clients to stay aligned. Project setups were also highly manual with each new onboarding required the team to recreate or customize plans from scratch based on the customer’s API use case.

Limited control over internal tools

Dwolla had a submission section embedded within its own product for clients to upload documents and send materials for review. However, this setup was rigid and hard to manage. Any updates or changes required engineering support and had to compete for space on the product roadmap. The onboarding team lacked autonomy to adapt the tool as processes evolved, which made it easy for the portal to become outdated and less effective over time.

Scattered client communication

Client collaboration heavily relied on Slack, long email threads, and phone calls. While some clients appreciated the instant access Slack provided, it set unrealistic expectations for immediate responses and created challenges when transitioning away from onboarding. Important information was often buried across threads or emails, increasing the risk of things falling through the cracks.

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The transformation with Rocketlane

With Rocketlane, Dwolla transformed onboarding into a structured, scalable, and client-friendly experience. The platform gave them full control, without relying on engineering and made their onboarding feel like a true extension of the Dwolla experience. For Nick, it wasn’t just about operational efficiency; it was about creating clarity and confidence for both internal teams and clients.

“Every time I have something for a client, I just make a task now. No five-paragraph emails. Everything stays in one place.”

Structured, scalable project management

The team now uses Rocketlane's pre-built templates tailored to different API use cases, making project setup much faster and more consistent. Automation helps generate project plans based on the solution sold, reducing manual effort and standardizing workflows across clients. This shift has allowed Dwolla to scale onboarding without compromising on quality or requiring more headcount.

Native Salesforce integration

Dwolla integrated Rocketlane seamlessly with Salesforce, their core source of truth. The integration automatically triggers a new onboarding project as soon as an opportunity is marked as “Closed-Won” in Salesforce. Based on mapped criteria (like the use case or solution sold), a corresponding project template is instantly spun up in Rocketlane. This has eliminated manual project creation, reduced human error, and ensured every customer starts with the right plan in place from day one.

Client experience that mirrors internal excellence

The switch to Rocketlane’s new customer portal experience was a significant upgrade for Dwolla. It has significantly elevated the client experience by providing clear visibility into timelines, responsibilities, and status updates, all within a single shared platform. Clients are no longer left guessing about what’s next or combing through Slack threads for updates. Instead, they have a structured portal where expectations are clearly set and progress is transparent.

"When we moved to Rocketlane’s new customer portal, it was another level of usefulness. It let us add widgets, present things as a checklist, and really tailor the experience. It started to feel less like a third-party tool and more like a website we had built ourselves. That made a huge difference in how clients perceived our onboarding."

Better internal alignment and ownership

Dwolla’s onboarding team are now able to take full control of their tooling without needing to depend on engineering. The team can easily make changes to templates, update workflows, and manage the client experience end-to-end. Tasks are now assigned to both internal and client stakeholders, making ownership clear and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks.

Project insights to improve and iterate

A key unlock for Dwolla has been Rocketlane’s reporting and analytics capabilities. For the first time, the team has visibility into where customers are getting stuck in the onboarding journey. This data helps inform process improvements and enables the team to proactively address bottlenecks. Instead of just reacting to issues, Dwolla can now iterate on their onboarding experience with data-backed confidence.