Zoho Creator Developer Console | Improved Distribution and Lifecycle Management for apps

Hello everyone,

We're excited to introduce new enhancements now in the Zoho Creator Developer Console. These updates strengthen private app distribution through licensing controls and extend environment support across all installed apps, helping teams test changes safely before going live.

What is private sharing?
Private sharing of apps gives you the flexibility to distribute your apps directly to specific clients using their Zoho email address. This is especially useful for developers and Partners who want to deliver tailored solutions to select customers.

Why this matters
Many of our Partners would like to distribute applications directly to clients and manage payments offline. Until now, Zoho Creator had no in-product mechanism to enforce app validity based on your payment or agreement status with clients. This meant that even if a client stopped renewing their license, the application remained fully functional in their account.

This new enhancement solves that issue by allowing Partners to define a clear validity period. Once expired, the app automatically becomes disabled, and the Partner gains the ability to block access fully. This protects your IP and ensures fair usage of your apps.

Additionally, there was previously no way to share apps for evaluation purposes. With this update, the Trial License feature enables developers to offer a time-bound preview before subscription.

While Developer Console already supported private sharing, we recognized that the existing flow was limited and didn't fully address the diverse requirements of our Partners. That’s why we've rolled out this new update to make the flow more robust and professional.

Here's how the new flow works:

Evaluation: You can now offer your client a Trial License for your app. Once the client is added and the app is shared with a trial license, they'll receive an installation email. After they install the app using the provided link, it becomes available in their Creator account for the trial period.
Post-evaluation: If an agreement isn't reached, the application will be disabled after the evaluation period ends. This means the app will switch to read-only mode, where the client would have access to existing data but won't be able to add new entries. At any point after the trial period expired, the developer will have the option to delete the disabled application (along with its data) from the client's account.
Subscription: Following the evaluation, if the client decides to proceed with a purchase, you can offer them a Subscription License after completing the transaction through your preferred channels. Based on your agreement, the subscription can be granted for as little as one month or set to lifetime validity.

Once the subscription period ends, the application is automatically disabled and moved to read-only mode, allowing clients to view existing data but not perform any actions. If required, developers can further restrict the application, completely blocking client access. If the client and developer agree to extend the subscription, the app can be unblocked and access restored.

These safeguards ensure clients can't continue using your app beyond your agreed terms with the client, giving you complete control, since payments are handled outside Zoho Creator.

To share applications with your clients:

Navigate to the Clients section. Click the horizontal ellipsis icon next to a client and select Share Application.
In the popup, you can choose the Application and the version to be shared with the client.
Next, you can choose from two license types:
Trial License: Provide your client with a trial period to evaluate the app. You can set the duration to 15, 30, or 60 days.

Subscription License: Once you've finalized the subscription terms with your client, you can issue a subscription license. You have the option to set a fixed validity period in months (from 1 to 36) or grant lifetime access to the app.

Consequently, with the introduction of this new flow, we've implemented automated email reminders to keep clients informed about their subscription status and expiry timelines. Developers will be proactively notified about client subscription activity and upcoming license expirations. This ensures both parties stay in sync throughout the subscription lifecycle.

Documentation
To help you better understand these changes, we've provided comprehensive resources to assist you with the private sharing of applications. They can be accessed at the Understanding private distribution of apps help page.

Environment support for installed apps

Along with the above enhancements, we're also introducing environment support for apps you've distributed. Your clients will now be able to add installed apps to environments and thoroughly test them in the staging environment before publishing them to production. This ensures the changes to apps are validated before they become accessible to end users.

This enhancement removes the earlier limitation that prevented distributed apps from being added to environments. Please note that while your clients can add distributed apps to environments, they will not have access to development. This continues our policy of protecting intellectual property and ensuring that developers remain in control of their apps.

For more information, visit the Installing and managing distributed apps help doc.

Timeline
These enhancements have already been rolled out and are now accessible to users in all DCs.

We believe this new enhancement to the private sharing feature will provide you with greater control and flexibility when distributing your Zoho Creator applications. We hope you love it!

We'll be back soon with more exciting updates, so stay tuned.

Regards,

The Zoho Creator Team