Developer guide: join as a partner, build an app, test it in the sandbox and submit it for certification

For invited developer partners: accept your invitation, create an app and a version, self-test in your own sandbox, submit for certification, fix what reviewers send back, and manage members and your account.

Step 1: Accept your invitation#

Developer access is by invitation. When the platform team invites you, you receive an email with an accept link (the link is valid for 7 days). Open the link, sign in with the same email address the invitation was sent to, and confirm. Your developer account becomes active and you land in the Developer Center. If you sign in with a different email address, the acceptance is refused and the invitation stays unused — sign out and sign back in with the invited address. If the link has expired, ask the platform team to send a new one.

Step 2: Create your app and its first version#

In the Developer Center, choose “New app” and give it a code and a display name. Then open the app and add a version: fill in the version number and declare what the version needs — the data permissions (scopes) it asks for, the web origins it may be embedded from, where its pages should appear in tenant menus, and any ready-made content pack it brings. You can only edit a declaration while the version is a draft or has been sent back for changes; after that it is locked, and any change means a new version. Only apps under your own developer account are visible to you — there is no way to see or open another partner’s apps.

Step 3: Test in your sandbox first#

Open the Sandbox page and provision your sandbox — each developer account gets one dedicated test organization that is fully separate from real tenants. Inside the sandbox you can install your own app even before it is certified, issue sandbox credentials, and call the public API with them to check your integration end to end. Run the self-checks from the sandbox page before you submit: they run the same automatic checks (connection, cross-organization refusal, and event signature checks) that the certification gate will run, and the results stay on record so you can fix problems early. Resetting the sandbox clears everything inside it and starts empty; your self-check history is kept. Sandbox credentials only ever work inside your sandbox — they cannot reach any real tenant’s data.

Step 4: Submit for certification#

Open the version and choose Submit. The automatic checks run first — for them to run, your app must already be installed in your sandbox with an event subscription in place, exactly as in the self-checks. If the automatic checks cannot run yet, the submission is held with a message telling you what is missing; nothing is silently approved. After the automatic part passes, the platform review team works through the remaining checklist items. You can follow the progress on the version page at any time: each item shows its result, and any item sent back shows the reviewer’s reason in plain words (you never see internal reviewer details).

Step 5: If your version is sent back#

A version sent back (“changes requested”) is not a rejection of your app — it means specific items need work. Read the reason on each item, fix your integration, and edit the version’s declaration if it needs changing (a sent-back version is editable again). Run the sandbox self-checks once more, then resubmit from the same version page. When every item passes, the version is certified for 12 months. After certification you publish it yourself from the same version page: to release to named tenants only, enter their organization list in the version’s allowlist field and save — only those organizations will see and be able to install the version, and you can update the list at any time; public listing is opened by the platform team.

Members and your account#

On the Members page, the account owner can invite teammates by email, add existing users directly, and remove members; invited teammates accept the same way as in Step 1. Members can work on the account’s apps, but only the owner manages members. On the Account page you can see your developer account’s details; the owner can update the account name and contact email — status and other platform-managed fields are shown read-only. If your developer account is suspended by the platform team, your apps can no longer be newly installed or submitted until it is reactivated — contact the platform team in that case; apps already installed keep their existing state and are handled by the platform team.

See your ratings and feedback#

On your app’s page in the Developer Center you can see how organizations that installed your app rate it: the real average, how many ratings there are, and the breakdown by stars. These are the true totals, shown only to you. The public catalog shows a score only once an app has at least 3 ratings; until then it shows “not enough ratings yet” instead — if your page says the sample is still too small, that is why the catalog does not show a score yet.

Organizations can also leave a short private note with their stars. You see the note and the stars, but never which organization sent it — feedback is anonymous on purpose. If you believe a rating came from a fake installation rather than a real customer, contact the platform team through the usual support channel and say which app and roughly when the rating appeared; the platform team can check the installation record and hide a rating that should not count. Ratings are never edited by the platform — a hidden rating can be restored if the check clears it.