Browse and turn on apps

Your organization's Workspace page is the catalog: every application the platform can run for you, the state of each one, and the one control that changes it.

Browsing the catalog#

Each card carries the app's name with its edition, its category, a one-line description, who maintains it, its licence identifier, and a badge for its current state. A search box and a set of filters narrow the list; the filters report how many rows each of their options would leave, so you can see the shape of the catalog before you tick anything.

A card also carries tags when the row needs them: Featured for an app the catalog highlights, Instance-wide for one that cannot be turned on for a single organization, Standalone app for one that is not a Nextcloud app, and Provisioned by the platform for one the platform runs with your organization rather than at your request.

What the filters mean#

• Category — which of the catalog's fixed set of categories the app belongs to, rendered as a plate on its card.
• Managed by — NuPaaS, Partner or Community. It says who maintains the software, not who hosts it: the platform hosts every row.
• Included in my plan — the apps your organization's plan already covers, so nothing here needs an upgrade first.
• SSO-ready, whose hint reads Uses your organization directory — the apps whose product signs people in through your organization's directory. The answer is a property of the product the app belongs to, and it is rendered from one place: see Signing in to apps.
• Not running yet — the apps that are not currently running for your organization, whatever the reason.

What turning an app on does#

The control a card offers follows what the platform would actually accept, so a card never shows a button whose call would be refused. Turning on is available for a group-restrictable Nextcloud app that is not running; an app whose last attempt failed offers Try again, because the call is the same one and repeating it is safe; an app that is already running offers a link to its own page; and an app the platform provisions with your organization, or one that is instance-wide, offers no turn-on at all.

Turning an app off is the destructive half, and it asks you to type the app's name rather than its address. Every Nextcloud app in an organization shares one address, so the address confirms nothing about which app is about to be switched off; the name does. Turning an app off does not delete files, members or storage, and you can turn it back on from the catalog.

The app-scope distinction#

Not every Nextcloud app can be restricted to one organization. The platform answers that question by measuring the instance it runs — issuing the real group-scoped enable command and recording the real result — rather than by reading a list of app types from documentation. Each app id therefore lands in one of three outcomes:

• Group-restrictable — the instance accepts the group-scoped enable, so the app can be turned on for your organization alone.
• Instance-wide — the instance refuses the group-scoped enable, either because the app declares a protected type that loads before a user session exists or because its author marked it instance-only. Such an app is enabled for the whole instance, so it affects every organization on the platform; the catalog shows it with the Instance-wide tag and an operator manages it.
• Unavailable — the instance cannot enable the app at all on the version it runs. An app in this state works for no organization, so it is not listed in the catalog at all.