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What are add-ons and apps?

Add-on services provide a secure way of extending the Jive Platform with third-party integrations. A Jive add-on is an archive file, containing configuration settings and other data, that can be installed into your Jive community.

What's the difference between add-ons and apps?​

Add-ons define the way that Jive Platform extensions are bundled and deployed into the Jive community.

An app is a particular type of Jive Platform extension that extends to the Jive UI.

An add-on can contain any number of apps, tiles, streams, templates, external storage frameworks, analytics services, cartridges, and other extension points. It is up to the developer exactly what is bundled within an add-on: some add-ons only contain configuration information and require the Jive server to communicate with a third-party service; other add-ons are standalone and do not depend on a third-party service. For example, with the Box.com Integration add-on, Box.com can be used as an external file storage. A community administrator can manually upload an add-on package into the community.

Additionally, add-ons can be installed for an entire community by a community administrator using the Jive Add-ons Registry. Add-ons can either pull data out of the community or bring data in. If you want to know more about apps, add-ons, and how to develop Jive integrations using the latest APIs, please visit the Jive Developer website at developer.jivesoftware.com.

Types of add-ons​

External Storage Providers : These add-ons leverage options outside of Jive for storing and synchronizing binary files uploaded to a Jive place.

API Services : These add-ons bring external data into Jive or share Jive data with third-party integrations using the Jive API service.

Analytics Services : These add-ons generate credentials that allow access to the Jive Data Export API. Provide these credentials to consumers of your analytics data so they can access the export service. These credentials may be revoked at any time.

Other Add-ons : These add-ons are the ones that cannot be placed in one of the previous categories.

Custom add-ons : These add-ons are the custom add-ons you create to bring external systems into Jive by building extensions for them. For instance, you can connect Jive to your bug tracking system or your version control system so that when a user views a place, they get a view of that other system. Not only can a user view information from that other system, but you can provide actions to the user without them ever having to leave Jive.

Managing Add-ons​

Jive lets you use add-ons that extend the Jive Platform capabilities to configure Jive. These add-ons can contain apps, tiles, streams, external storage providers, analytics services, and other extension points to Jive.

When you select Add-ons, you see all available add-ons:

  • What are add-ons and apps? Add-on services provide a secure way of extending the Jive Platform with third-party integrations. A Jive add-on is an archive file, containing configuration settings and other data, that can be installed into your Jive community.

  • Managing add-ons Extending the functionality of your community with add-ons requires installing, configuring, maintaining, and uninstalling add-ons. You can find the basic tasks for managing add-ons in this section.

  • Managing storage provider add-ons The External Storage Framework allows you to create connections to any file storage provider, enabling users to bidirectionally synchronize updates to a place in Jive and a location on the storage provider.

  • Managing API add-ons API add-ons bring external data into Jive or share Jive data with third-party integrations using Jive APIs. These add-ons expose tiles, templates, apps, and other Jive extensions.

  • Managing Analytics add-ons Analytics add-ons generate credentials that allow access to the Jive Data Export API. Provide these credentials to consumers of your analytics data so they can access the export service. These credentials may be revoked at any time.

  • Managing other add-ons Some add-ons don't fit into any other category but show up in the All Add-ons category. These include the add-ons you built yourself and any client apps from the Jive Add-ons Registry that don't contain tiles or templates.

  • Building your own add-ons If you have an internal or external system that you want to use to share information with Jive, then you might consider building your own add-on.

  • Troubleshooting add-ons You can diagnose and fix common problems with add-ons by looking at our troubleshooting tips.