We are super excited to kickstart our latest initiative “Community Hours” on the occasion of the second community anniversary! 
It would be a monthly virtual catch-up to connect and learn from the experts in the community and know more about the Freshworks Developer Platform.
Topic: Types of Apps You Can Build Using Freshworks Developer Platform
Speakers: Meet the Freshworks platform experts @satwik and @Saif
Recording:
When:
24th Feb 2022
5:30 pm IST (India)| 1:00 pm CET| 12:00 pm GMT (London)
Check your time zone.
What will we cover:
In this session, we’re going to showcase how with different ways you can build the apps and unlock opportunities with Freshworks. As an attendee, you will get to know how to solve business problems based on the app distribution model that works for your use case. We will also delve into standard requirements developers often recognize to take their apps to users.
What will you learn?
- App Platform
- Apps for Custom Problems
- Apps for Common Problems
Code Coverage
App Review Process - Apps independent of App Platform
- Unique Technical Requirements
Rate Limits
Middlewares
Why you should attend!
- You’ll be able to decide which app type is a suitable use case to solve the same business problem
- Learn how to allocate enough time to clear the app review process and publish without issues
- Understand the scope of the App Platform to create a great solution and avoid roadblocks
Q&A:
Q1- When will the task module get a fully-fledged API in Freshservice? We would like to see ontaskcreate and ontaskupdate actions for integrations purposes?
A1- We wish it were sooner. Feature requests beyond the topic we present today are probably better to put in the developer community forum, else the discussion will get lost.
Q2 - Do you have any plans to add custom apps/functions in a WFA scenario?
A2 - This is indeed an emerging use case we have taken note of and passed on to our product management team. It would certainly help if, as Kaustav pointed out, you could also cross-post this on the community forum so that we could collect votes on it, capture your particular use-case, and bring more weight to our convictions to get this prioritized. Thanks for bringing this up!
Q3 - Is there a provision in-app platform where developers can try out cross-app integration/deploy apps as part of Trial accounts
A3 - With the Trial account for app developers, all kinds of apps can be published. If your question is about publishing the same app for multiple Freshworks products, it’s only possible to publish a common app between Freshsales and Freshsales Suite (Freshworks CRM).
Q4 - Is there a reward program for developers because for indie developers it will be helpful
A4 - Thanks for asking this question, Vignesh. Since we are a marketplace, the way developers can earn rewards as indie developers is by identifying a promising use-case, solving it as a public app and getting it listed as a paid app on the marketplace, and making revenue through customer adoption. The other way would be to wait for our hackathons and win them.
Q5 - What do you mean by validating? What does it do to the code?
A5 - “Validate” checks if the app has everything properly wired up. It checks code syntax, manifest.json values, iparams, etc. You can run it usingfdk validate. It doesn’t change any code though. Just tells you what you need to fix before you can publish your app.
Q6 - Can you give me some real-life application examples of the custom object? .where we can able to view custom objects In UI? While we delete a record in custom objects A successful delete operation returns an empty object But I have faced that the response shows error undefined but after refreshing the page Record is deleted but we get an undefined response so whats the exact scenario will happen over deleting operations?
A6 - Have you had the chance to look at the documentation for Custom Objects here - Freshworks Developer Docs | Freshworks app ecosystem. This does explain Custom Objects using a real-life example we know one of our customers tried on the platform. There are other examples from our BuildToWin contest from last year - maybe you can find them on our community by searching for that tag #BuildToWin.
Q7 - Can we get a dev account for the customer account?
A7 - The developer account is for everyone. But, it comes with some limitations and it cannot be used for business purposes by the customers. Customers can start paying to a trial account and convert to one of the paid tier for the same account as well.
Q8 - One pain point I have experienced is spinning up a sandbox environment of our production instances and none of our apps are installed. So we have to go through the steps to install all of our apps to replicate the production environment. Can we make this more seamless?
A8 - I understand the hurdle, could you also please raise it as feedback on our community? We can keep this thread updated with more feedback and confirm when it’s addressed.
Q9 - Will there be support for storing files?
A9 - Currently, it’s not possible to store files that are not the source files for the application. Please show your interest in our community with what kind of use case are you trying to solve, we can consider with more interest.
Q10 - As an indie app developer, how do I tackle GDPR?
A10 - Great question! For data that is stored with Freshworks, we have the ability to store data for a customer signing up in our EU region in an EU data center, plus the ability to delete this data when the account is deleted or the app is uninstalled. There is also the ability to export this data for a customer if they ever ask for it. For data outside Freshworks, we rely on the developer to do the needful.
We could certainly do more in terms of making it easier to prove compliance with GDPR and that is something certainly being considered.
Q11 - Could we have a process of publishing a custom app for a customer without needing to have access to their developer portal and them not having the ability to download the code.
A11 - This is not possible today with a custom app. However, your options are:
- Publish as a public app,
- Run a compiler on the code and obfuscate it before packing.
Q12 - Do I have to undergo training before I can publish apps on the marketplace?
A12 - Assuming you mean publishing a Public/Freshworks App to the Marketplace, there is no such requirement today. Training and certification would certainly give you more confidence about your readiness to build a reliable app and support a large number of customers. Certification is certainly important if you want to work directly with customers to build custom apps for them because they would like to see how skilled you are, and the certification helps with that.
Q13 - How can I apply for training and certification?
A13 - This is available in the Service Catalog on https://dev-assist.freshworks.com/.
Q14 - If I fdk run my app, then go to custom app portal where it is running in “In Dev” mode, If I use the app it says 500 something went wrong. But is the same app working fine in localhost:10001/custom_configs?
A14 - The custom_configs page shows the installation page using iparams config from the config/ directory. Not the app. This would mean you would have to check the app code itself (under app/ and server/ directories).
Q15 - What’s the url for request rate limits on accounts? I guess the image you just showed is a real instance with real service items or was it just an example
A15 - https://dev-assist.freshservice.com/support/catalog/items/44. Checkout the guidance for the same here - https://community.developers.freshworks.com/docs?topic=2980
You can also have your question ready beforehand, as we have a live Q&A during the session, where our fantastic DevExperts will be answering all of your questions.
Can’t make it? The recording will be available in case you missed the live event.
Looking forward to seeing you at the next event!