question

Please search this community forum, the question of private apps has come up many times before - in short, they are not currently supported.

Your application uses Clover APIs to access merchant data. In order to protect our merchants they must explicitly choose to give your application access to their data and that is done when they install your application via the app market.

@David Marginian I don't think your security concern is completely valid for this scenario as I am still talking about installing an app. I would be fine if only the merchant owner could do this. However, I don't think that needing to have to go through all the effort of submitting an app just so that my one business can use it and no other is worth it. I don't think there is any security concern here as it is just that "private", the whole point would be that it would only be part of your merchant/business and if you are the owner why would there be any security concern? I would think that clover would be open to helping its customers with features like this. I think that this is a big gap in functionality since there is so much info needed to submit an app.

Also if security is the concern, how is this any different than using an api token generated in your merchant account and pulling/pushing data? You don't have to go through any install process for this. I think web hooks should be no different.

I honestly think Clover hasn't figured out a way to monetize private apps, and that's their hold up.

I work for a restaurant. In order for me to add functionality to our Clover environment, that's entirely unique to us, I have to go through a huge process of becoming an approved developer, AND I have to make an app that's available to anyone. It's nonsensical.

The reasoning/logic that it's for security falls apart because the only affected merchant is the merchant that is trying to develop their own app, for their own purpose. Not to mention that even with an OAuth process, we're still granted an API token that can be lost or stolen or abused.

I'd be happier if Clover came out and said "We need to monetize private apps". At least then it would make sense.

There are many options for them to allow us to have private apps and for them to make money, too. Make developers with private apps pay a fee. Charge developers an API usage fee, like AWS. Force private apps to have a minimum dollar value to be installed. The list goes on.

I've been loving Clover. Some aspects of the API definitely can use improvement. And the documentation area can be incomplete in places. But still. I can see my data and pull it to my own database. That's great.

But this hate toward private apps is useless. My restaurant doesn't make millions a month, but we aren't small either. We generate minimum $20K a day. To be told that we can't make a private app unique to us is maddening.

Don't know what's the fuzz about, but you *can* use a private app without publishing on the app market.

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