Share: The Essentials

AppSheet allows you to share your apps with users in different ways instead of providing an app store. When you are ready to share your app, you need to decide whether to share it with anyone (public) or a restricted audience.

After sharing an app, you might want to notify users by sending them a link.

See also: Restrict sharing of apps

Quick intro

Watch the following video for an introduction to sharing and deploying your app.

Sharing and deploying your app with AppSheet

Share your app with anyone (public access)

Share your app with anyone by making it public if and only if the following statements are true:

• Access to your app does not need to be secure for any reason and your app does not access sensitive data
• You are not concerned about the number of active users accessing your app

To share your app with anyone (public access):

1. Open your app in the app editor.
2. Select Security > Require sign-In.
3. Disable Require user signin?
4. Respond to the following prompts to confirm you understand the security implications of making an app public.
   Note: If you do not respond to the prompts, your app will not be made public.
   • Yes, the data in the app is public - You acknowledge that security and access control is not required for all the data in this app.
   • Yes, I am authorized to set up an insecure app - You acknowledge on behalf of your organization that you knowingly take on the risks of running an insecure app.
5. Click Save.

After sharing an app with anyone, you might want to notify users by sending them a link.

Share your apps with a restricted audience

Note: To control access to apps by a restricted audience, you must require user sign-in, which is enabled by default.

When you notify users about your app, you have no control over how the notification is forwarded. Links to your app could be shared on a popular Twitter feed – which could be viewed as good or bad! Your app may reach a much broader audience than you had intended. In addition, you may want to be able to revoke access to an app if an employee leaves the company, for example.

Share your apps with a restricted audience to control who can use the app and optionally view or edit the app definition in the app editor. After an app is shared with users, they can access it from the Shared with me section of the Apps Gallery, as described in Access your apps.

For example, the following shows how to share apps with a restricted audience using the Share app dialog.

Share your apps with a restricted audience as described in the following sections:

• Share your app with individual users
• Share your app with all users in a domain
• Share your app with all signed-in users
• Share your app with existing domain groups

In addition, you can do the following:

• Send reminder notifications to individual users
• Search for individual users or domains with shared access
• Modify or remove shared access to your app
• Manage permissions for individual users
• Copy all users with shared access
• Understand app collaboration and data security

Share your app with individual users

To share your app with individual users:

1. Open your app in the app editor.
2. Ensure that you have configured your app to require user sign-in. See Require sign-in: The Essentials.
3. Click the Share icon in the title bar.

   

   The Share app dialog displays.

4. Enter the email address of the user with whom you want to share your app, such as [email protected], and press Enter. Repeat to share with additional users.
5. Select one of the following app permissions:

   Note: See also Understand app collaboration and data security.

   • Use app - Users can use the app, but can't view or edit the app in the app editor.
   • View definition - Users can view and copy the app in the app editor, but can't edit the app. See also Let another user copy your app.
   • Edit definition - Users can edit the app in the app editor.
     Note: Only one user should edit an app at a time. If two users attempt to edit an app at the same time, conflicts may occur when the app is saved.
6. To manage advanced permissions for an individual user, enable the Advanced toggle.
   
7. Perform one or more of the following tasks:
   • Change the user role to User or Admin. For information about leveraging the user role in your app, see USERROLE(). The role defaults to User.
   • Change the app version available to the user to Default, Latest, or Stable. For information about app versions, see Maintain a stable app version.
8. Optionally, you can send an email notification to users to invite them to install and access your app. To send a notification, select Notify users and modify the notification message, as required. Or you can notify users later.
9. Confirm that you are not a robot at the reCAPTCHA verification prompt.
   
10. Click Send.
    Or Share if you disabled Notify users.
11. Optionally, click and change the authorization provider used for user sign-in.
12. Click Done.

Share your app with all users in a domain

Sharing your app with all users in a domain enables them to use the app. To permit users in a domain to view or edit the app definition, you must add them as individual users and set the permissions accordingly.

Note: As a security precaution, AppSheet prevents you from sharing your app to a widely used domain name, such as gmail.com.

To share an app with all users in a domain:

1. Open your app in the app editor.
2. Ensure that you have configured your app to require user sign-in. See Require sign-in: The Essentials.
3. Click the Share icon in the title bar.

   

   The Share app dialog displays.

4. Enter the name of the domain to which you want to share your app, such as example.com, and press Enter.
5. Repeat to share with additional domains.
6. Confirm that you are not a robot at the reCAPTCHA verification prompt.
   
7. Click Share.
8. Optionally, click and change the authorization provider used for user sign-in.
9. Click Copy sharing links to copy app links to send directly to users.
10. Click Done.

Share your app with all signed-in users

Note: Enable this option when you do not need to restrict access to a specific list of users but still want to access user-specific information like email, or use personalization features like security filters or private tables.

To share your app with all signed-in users:

1. Open your app in the app editor.
2. Select Security > Require sign-In.
3. Enable Require user signin.
4. Enable Allow all signed-in users.
5. Respond to the following prompts to confirm you understand the security implications of making an app available to all signed-in users.
   Note: If you do not respond to the prompts, your app will not be made available to all signed-in users.
   • Yes, this is a public app - You acknowledge that security and access control is not required for all the data in this app or that you will maintain correctly configured security filters for all the data in this app.
   • Yes, I am authorized to set up a public app - You acknowledge on behalf of your organization that you knowingly take on the risks of data exposure for any data that you have not placed behind a correctly configured security filter.
6. Click Save.

To remove shared access by all signed-in users, disable the Allow all signed-in users.

After sharing an app with all signed-in users, you might want to notify users by sending them a link.

Share your app with existing domain groups

If you have an Enterprise account, you can control access to your apps using domain groups, as described in Domain Integration: The Essentials.

Send reminder notifications to individual users

To send reminder notifications to individual users if they have not accessed your app:

1. Open your app in the app editor.
2. Click the Share icon in the title bar.

   

   The Share app dialog displays.

3. View the individual users to which the app has been shared in the Users section.
   Note: If a user has not accessed the app, you'll see the reminder icon and Invited by their name.
   
4. Click the reminder icon to send a reminder invitation to the user.

Search for individual users and domains with shared access

To search for individual users and domains with shared access:

1. Open your app in the app editor.
2. Click the Share icon in the title bar.
   
   The Share app dialog displays.
3. Enable the Advanced toggle.
4. Enter a string in the search dialog to filter the list.
   Search is case insensitive.

Modify or remove shared access to your app

After sharing an app, to modify or remove shared access:

1. Open your app in the app editor.
2. Click the Share icon in the title bar.

   

   The Share app dialog displays.

3. Perform one of the following tasks:
   • Modify app permissions for individual users.
   • Remove shared access by an individual user or domain by selecting Remove from the app permissions drop-down.
4. Click Done.

Manage permissions for individual users

After sharing your app, to manage permissions for individual users:

1. Open your app in the app editor.
2. Click the Share icon in the title bar.

   

   The Share app dialog displays.

3. Change the app permission for an individual user, as desired.

   Note: See also Understand app collaboration and data security.

   • Use app - Users can use the app, but can't view or edit the app in the app editor.
   • View definition - Users can view and copy the app in the app editor, but can't edit the app. See also Let another user copy your app.
   • Edit definition - Users can edit the app in the app editor.
     Note: Only one user should edit an app at a time. If two users attempt to edit an app at the same time, conflicts may occur when the app is saved.
4. To manage in-app permissions for an individual user, enable the Advanced toggle and perform one or more of the following tasks:
   • Change the user role to User or Admin. For information about leveraging the user role in your app, see USERROLE(). The role defaults to User.
   • Change the app version available to the user to Default, Latest, or Stable. For information about app versions, see Maintain a stable app version.

Copy all users with shared access

To copy all users with shared access:

1. Open your app in the app editor.
2. Click the Share icon in the title bar.
   
3. The Share app dialog displays.
4. Click Copy users.

Understand app collaboration and data security

Apps shared with view or edit permissions are displayed in the Co-Authored Apps section of My Apps. Only one user should edit an app at a time. If two users attempt to edit an app at the same time, conflicts may occur when the app is saved.

A co-author can only add a new table to the app from a team-shared data source. A co-author cannot add a new table to the app from either the app author's cloud file system or the co-author's cloud file system. The following table provides more details.

Notify users about your app

After sharing your app, you may want to notify users by sending them a link. For example, you might:

• Include a link in an email campaign
• Publish the link to a web site
• Post the link to your Twitter account
• Send the link in an SMS message

You can also enable users to share a link to your app.

Send users a link to your app

To send users a link to your app:

1. Open your app in the app editor.
2. Click the Share icon in the title bar.

   

   The Share app dialog displays.

3. Click Copy sharing links.
4. Copy the links to access your app in the editor, browser, or mobile device.
5. Send the link to users using your preferred method.

Also, when sharing your app with individual users, you have the option to notify them by email and send them a reminder notification if there is no response.

Enable users to share a link to your app

By default, users can share a link to your app with other users by selecting Share in the app menu. Details about how to install the app are populated in an email that you can customize and send to one or more users.

Note: If the current view is a Detail view, the view details are shared instead of installation information.

If your app is configured to require user sign-in or you want to limit app sharing, you can disable this feature.

To disable the ability for users to share your app:

1. Open the app in the app editor.
2. Select Settings  > Views > General > System Buttons.
   We've made some improvements to the app editor.
   You are opted in to the new editor by default, but you can switch back to the legacy editor at any time.
    

   If you are using the legacy editor

   Select UX > Options.
3. Turn on Disable share button.