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:convenience_store: App Store for Nextcloud
https://apps.nextcloud.com
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Make integrations review process better #1092

Open DaphneMuller opened 1 year ago

DaphneMuller commented 1 year ago

So apparently there seems to be a separate system if people want to develop an integration and have it linked in the app store. It is seemingly a different system from the normal app upload process. And it is very inconvenient.

The workflow is as follows:

  1. Log into apps.nextcloud.com

  2. Click Integration developer > Register integration

    Screenshot 2023-07-25 at 10 26 24

  3. Register the integration

  4. Jos Poortvliet (the director of Marketing) receives an e-mail and has to approve the integration. Which he never does. image

I think we should figure out which system this is and if we have to keep it, and if we have to keep it, we have to make sure that other people than Jos can approve the integration so that the integrations get reviewed faster.

@jancborchardt @AndyScherzinger please let me know if we have to keep this system

@bigcat88 it would be great if you could provide some details and your opinion on what to do here

bigcat88 commented 1 year ago

And what is the background and why was a separate process for integrations made?

DaphneMuller commented 1 year ago

I have no clue, I'm hoping that @jancborchardt can enlighten us. It's a bad system.

jancborchardt commented 1 year ago

@AndyScherzinger @karlitschek @jospoortvliet do you know why this separate process for integrations was established?

I agree with @DaphneMuller that it seems strange to have a different flow just for integrations, and it could be easier for everyone (no?) if it is the same as for app developers.

DaphneMuller commented 1 year ago

Just discussed this with Frank. The entire feature for these integrations can be deleted. @bigcat88 can you give me an effort estimate please or add it to your to do list it if it is less than 3 days of work?

DaphneMuller commented 1 year ago

as a follow up on https://github.com/nextcloud/appstore/issues/1101

It turns out that this integration publishing feature is actively used for publishing clients. This is a good use case and it would be great to have all clients published in the app store, however the way this is designed is totally confusing and it is not obvious at all to client developers that this integrations publishing feature can be used to publish their client.

So, the feature cannot be deleted, but has to be redesigned and renamed.

@szaimen or anyone else of the design team, @jancborchardt what do you think?

jancborchardt commented 1 year ago

We could rename it to "Mobile & desktop developers"? That is very specific.

(Yes it doesn't include other web apps which use Nextcloud though.)

DaphneMuller commented 1 year ago

are there other web apps to be included then? @jancborchardt do you have examples of any of those

bigcat88 commented 1 year ago

We could rename it to "Mobile & desktop developers"? That is very specific.

And in one word it can be called "Integrations", imho, how it is called now.

jancborchardt commented 1 year ago

@DaphneMuller not many, but e.g. WebEx using our file picker could be an example? (And more if we really push our APIs.) Then it would indeed make more sense to continue ti call it "Integrations" and explain it.

provokateurin commented 1 year ago

I discussed this a bit with @DaphneMuller since I also wasn't aware of this feature and we came up with this idea:

  1. Keep the existing button for "Integrations"
    • Add some explanations that developers can either upload an app or just use this flow to promote their software that integrates with Nextcloud (or do both as with OpenProject for example)
    • Add two buttons that lead to the app upload flow and the integration register flow
  2. Add a button for "Clients"
    • Use the re-use the existing flow for registering an Integration but call it "Clients"
  3. Change the approval flow so that the @nextcloud/integration's Team reviews the applications instead of @jospoortvliet
  4. The Integrations that are not apps should be displayed in the same category on the left sidebar as the "normal" app Integrations (I think this is already the case)
  5. A new category on the side for "Clients" should be created that will only show the Clients.
  6. Additional feature idea: On the page of an app it would be great to list all the clients that can work with it. For example the Table App could have a list of compatible clients and show the Tables Android client that is also already published on the App store. For this to work we would need to add a new field that can link from the clients to the supported apps.

Note: The register Integration and register Client flow are basically the same, just other wording. I guess in the database they can also stay in the same table, just have a field to tell the App store if it is an Integration or Client.

Please let us know your thoughts, we will also discuss this in the next Integrations Team call on Monday.

bigcat88 commented 1 year ago

Keep the existing button for "Integrations"

  • Add some explanations that developers can either upload an app or just use this flow to promote their software that integrates with Nextcloud (or do both as with OpenProject for example)
  • Add two buttons that lead to the app upload flow and the integration register flow

as for me it would be ideal if it was one flow, since it is still unclear to me where the external application will eventually go - to the third type of flow? in DB the Integration from usual App differs just one boolean in the main table.

3. Change the approval flow so that the @nextcloud/integration's Team reviews the applications instead of @jospoortvliet

Fully agree, but then we all need appstore accounts, and probably - administrative ones. Very hard question, we can implement half-admin accounts, but it will take a lot of time.

4. The Integrations that are not apps should be displayed in the same category on the left sidebar as the "normal" app Integrations (I think this is already the case)

Can you elaborate what is "The Integrations that are not apps" ? For me in many cases it can be an app and integration at the same time...

5. A new category on the side for "Clients" should be created that will only show the Clients.

Problem is that, Client can be an Integration.

6. Additional feature idea: On the page of an app it would be great to list all the clients that can work with it. For example the Table App could have a list of compatible clients and show the Tables Android client that is also already published on the App store. For this to work we would need to add a new field that can link from the clients to the supported apps.

This should be done with Tags.

We need to think very wide from here, imho, as probably from the next week I will start thinking and implementing support of External Applications in the AppStore, as we already on stage when we are finished prototyping stage.

Please let us know your thoughts, we will also discuss this in the next Integrations Team call on Monday.

As an initial idea - not bad, we all need to prepare for a brainstorm.

marcelklehr commented 1 year ago

Having the same flow for normal apps and integrations is going to be hard, IMO, because integrations don't publish their app on the Nextcloud app store, but somewhere else.

While we're at it: Integration developers also currently cannot edit these entries. Ever.

jospoortvliet commented 1 year ago

While we're at it: Integration developers also currently cannot edit these entries. Ever.

Yeah, that's a major issue. Somehow, I can edit them when reviewing, but then I become the owner for some weird reason.

Jos Poortvliet (the director of Marketing) receives an e-mail and has to approve the integration. Which he never does.

That is not true, I've approved many dozens of them and rejected many more. It's not working great and shouldn't just rely on me, but there are tons of apps in the store that were created through this process.

We do need this for third party integrations, which is why it was developed in the first place - on request of Frank and myself. We wanted a way to display nextcloud clients and third party integrations that have no Nextcloud app or side, like DavX5. Frank might have forgotten about it, it's been a few years, or has never seen what apps are in this category - happy to talk to him about it and remind him. But I'd say, the idea worked and did what it was supposed to do, but the implementation isn't great.

Instead of deleting it, how about fixing it? The need hasn't gone away, so if we delete it now, we just have to develop it from scratch later on.

BTW in the last weeks, something was changed in the app store, and the integration process is now broken. I've been trying to approve some and they keep publishing weird stuff: https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/whmcs_integration

meanwhile, some examples of the integrations:

Anyway, after going over half the page I thought I should do something else with my time ;-)

Let's fix this, like making it possible to change entries, and letting a team review instead of just me. But don't delete it.

Oh and we probably want to make this multiple categories. Right now, nobody scrolls through that list, of course, even if it gives you a page to link to (which is, of course, valuable in itself).

provokateurin commented 1 year ago

@jospoortvliet we won't remove this feature! We will fix it properly and make it actually useful. We had some discussion about it during our team call but didn't post the results here. Sorry for that.

jospoortvliet commented 1 year ago

@jospoortvliet we won't remove this feature! We will fix it properly and make it actually useful. We had some discussion about it during our team call but didn't post the results here. Sorry for that.

Great to hear 🕺🏻