Joined Keka • Shipped • Feb 2025

App Portal — The Developer Platform for Seamless Integrations

App Portal — The Developer Platform for Seamless Integrations
Designing App Portal experience that simplify integrations for 150+ partners and 8,500+ customers—making connectivity effortless and unlocking new possibilities.
Designing App Portal experience that simplify integrations for 150+ partners and 8,500+ customers—making connectivity effortless and unlocking new possibilities.
Designing App Portal experience that simplify integrations for 150+ partners and 8,500+ customers—making connectivity effortless and unlocking new possibilities.
Designing App Portal experience that simplify integrations for 150+ partners and 8,500+ customers—making connectivity effortless and unlocking new possibilities.

About App Portal

Keka App portal is a new development platform that will enable users to build integrations using the Keka APIs and Webhooks. Users can create, test and publish their apps to the Keka Marketplace gaining higher visibility for their offerings. Also build "private" apps that can be used within their own organization for enabling their desired workflows and processes.

Sharing the Impact

Finally, after over a year of hard work and countless brainstorming sessions, our product is live! I am excited to see strong traction, with meaningful impact on our business, customers, and partners.

How it started?

"Keka Secures India’s Largest Series A SaaS funding with $57 Million from WestBridge Capital"

By 2023, Keka had grown exponentially, serving over 8000+ customers and 150+ partners. However, a key challenge emerged—meeting the integration needs of these customers and partners. At the time, Keka didn’t have a dedicated team or POD to address these requirements. Recognizing this gap, the business saw a huge opportunity to unlock an additional ~ $2M in ARR by solving these integration challenges. This realization set the stage for building a strong integrations team.

Joining Keka in 2023 as a Product Designer in the Marketplace and Integrations POD came at the perfect time, just as Keka achieved India’s largest Series A SaaS funding. It was an exciting opportunity to be part of a transformative journey.

What did I do?

Timeline

Initial discussions

In my first discussion with the Product team, we talked about the problem we were solving, who the users are, and the product's vision and strategy. It felt a bit overwhelming 🤯 but also very interesting. The product was highly technical, and I needed to understand how different systems connect and how data is shared between them. It was a challenging start, but it made the work even more exciting.

The Problem 😕

"App portal will be used by different personas across varying roles in businesses, healthcare, education, IT, and more. Our users include partners, customers, and keka's internal teams."

What we found on
High level 🔎

Partners

We have more than 150+ partners who provides different services such as Product integration, Implementation, and Re-sellers. Through our discussions with the partners, we have got an interesting insights into their challenges. Here’s an overview of the key issues they are facing.

"There’s no dedicated platform for managing app integrations or showcasing partner listings effectively."

"There’s no dedicated platform for managing app integrations or showcasing partner listings effectively."

"There’s no dedicated platform for managing app integrations or showcasing partner listings effectively."

"The integration process involves significant manual intervention, making it time-consuming and inefficient"

"The integration process involves significant manual intervention, making it time-consuming and inefficient"

"The integration process involves significant manual intervention, making it time-consuming and inefficient"

"The app installation process is manual and complicated."

"The app installation process is manual and complicated."

"The app installation process is manual and complicated."

Customers

With over 6,500 active customers, from small businesses to large enterprises. We had a chance to connect with couple of customers and gained valuable insights from our discussions with them. Here are the challenges they're currently facing.

"Currently, only a few apps and services are available to explore and install in workspace."

"Currently, only a few apps and services are available to explore and install in workspace."

Defining the challenge
and exploring ideas💡

Analysing...

To begin, we analysed several competitors to see how they approached this problem and identified key insights to help us design a better user experience.

Approach 01

What didn’t work

  • The solution focuses more on app listing than app creation. Combining app configuration with listing details won’t scale as configurations become more complex.

  • The solution may not scale across multiple workspaces, where users need to install and test apps in different environments.

  • Users lack a clear way to review and verify their inputs, increasing uncertainty and the risk of errors.

Approach 02

What didn’t work

  • The listing experience is confusing. Simplify the structure and interactions to make it easier to navigate and understand.

  • Keep the app manifest separate from configuration. It’s an independent feature for uploading code that contains the app details.

  • Give more space to configuration details since they drive user interaction, and reduce the header space as it has limited functionality.

  • Simplify the app status component to show only the current stage, with an option to view all stages. Refine the UX copy to make it clearer and more concise.

Presenting the App Portal 🚀

Presenting the App Portal 🚀

A homepage designed for partners and customers

Designed a personalised homepage for partners and customers, ensuring a seamless and intuitive experience tailored to their needs.

Seamless app creation tailored for Keka users

Create apps with ease through simple, step-by-step guidance. The process ensures clarity and a seamless experience from start to finish providing more flexibility.

Simplifying the App configuration

Configure your app with ease using intuitive tools and clear guidance, ensuring a seamless experience from start to finish.

Different states of app status

Displaying all use cases during app creation, allowing users to easily track and understand the app's current status.

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App listing details experience for Keka users

Simple and seamless experience for adding the app listing details which will be displayed to the Keka customers on Keka marketplace.

After multiple approaches and feedback from the leadership, and internal stakeholders. We have finally went ahead with this approach. We conducted user testing sessions with partners to evaluate the product's usability, ensuring that the experience is both seamless and simple.

App listing details section components

The design goal is to make each section seamless, enabling users to easily complete the app listing details. The section menu features different states for clarity, while the technical design section captures the app's tech stack.

Snippets of a user testing session with one of our partner

We had a usability testing session with partner called "Kredo AI" and received good amount of insights from the session.

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Metrics

Sharing the Impact

Finally, after over a year of hard work and countless brainstorming sessions, our product is live! I am excited to see strong traction, with meaningful impact on our business, customers, and partners.

Learnings

"Designing this experience from scratch has been an extraordinary journey, filled with insights, challenges, and growth."

Seeing the final product go live and witnessing its meaningful impact on the business and our end-users has been immensely fulfilling.
One of the most rewarding aspects of this process was engaging directly with users. These conversations provided me a deeper understanding of their challenges, pain points, and expectations. Their insights shaped the foundation of scalable solutions that not only address immediate needs but also align with long-term goals.
"Designing this experience from scratch has been an extraordinary journey, filled with insights, challenges, and growth."

Seeing the final product go live and witnessing its meaningful impact on the business and our end-users has been immensely fulfilling.

One of the most rewarding aspects of this process was engaging directly with users. These conversations provided me a deeper understanding of their challenges, pain points, and expectations. Their insights shaped the foundation of scalable solutions that not only address immediate needs but also align with long-term goals.

Thanks for watching 😀

How I redesigned Inventory widget experience

Designing technology that feels human.

Crafting simple, thoughtful experiences from complex technology.

Designing technology that feels human.

Crafting simple, thoughtful experiences from complex technology.

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