Plan requirement
| Subscription | Any plan |
| Access | Admin |
Six questions worth answering first. Installing an app is choosing a supplier, not enabling a feature.
One: who built it
Zendesk's own apps are maintained by Zendesk. Everything else depends on another company continuing to maintain it, and small apps are abandoned regularly.
Two: what data does it reach
Most apps see ticket content, which means what your customers wrote. On a regulated account this is a supplier assessment rather than a click.
One red flag is worth knowing by name. No third-party app, integration or bot may use your API credentials, neither an API token nor your own OAuth client, to make its calls. Zendesk forbids it whether the app is in the Marketplace or not. So an app that asks you to paste an API token is asking for something it is not allowed to have, and that is reason enough to stop and ask us.
It also cuts the other way as reassurance: anything built for more than one Zendesk customer has to be submitted to the Marketplace for review and approval. That review does not apply to a private app somebody builds for you alone.
Three: does it cost anything
Free to install often means charged separately. Find out before, not on an invoice, and find out who charges you, because the two behave differently when you stop. An app billed through the Marketplace is cancelled by uninstalling it, with any remaining cost prorated back. An app the developer invoices you directly carries on invoicing you until you cancel with them.
Four: does something built in already do this
A surprising share of apps duplicate a view, a macro, a trigger or a field. Those need no supplier, no access and no maintenance.
Ask this question before the others; it often ends the conversation.
Five: what happens if it stops working
If your process depends on it, an abandoned app becomes an outage. If it is a convenience, that is an inconvenience.
Knowing which you are installing changes how much diligence it deserves.
Six: who owns it here
Somebody has to notice when it breaks, renew it, and decide when it goes. An app with no owner is one nobody removes and nobody maintains.
Try it narrowly
One group, for a fortnight, with a decision date. Apps installed to try are the ones still there three years later.
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