Flock App Lifecycle

A Flock App is the bridge between your code and the Flock ecosystem. It's an integration that extends the functionality of Flock Safety products - adding new features, integrating with external services, or enhancing the user experience.

To provide the best experience possible for our mutual customers, we maintain a vetted app ecosystem. This approach provides organizational admins with the governance and security they need to confidently enable integrations that extend their Flock Safety products.

1. Development phase

For approved partner developers, every integration begins in a private sandbox environment. This is a safe space for you to build and test your integration’s logic before it ever interacts with a customer's live data.

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Attention customer developers
Private sandbox environments aren't available to customer developers in our self-service tier.
If you are a customer developer and need a private sandbox environment to test your development, please reach out to your Flock Safety representative and ask about our Technical API Support package in order to get access to a sandbox.

Application & Alignment: Our Partnerships team reviews every application to ensure the use case aligns with our API & Integrations Terms. We look for legitimacy and a clear security profile to keep the ecosystem safe for everyone.
Getting Your Keys: Once approved, we’ll securely share your Client ID and Client Secret. Think of these as your app's passport - keep them out of version control and treat the Secret like a password.
The Build: Development is primarily a self-service process. While we provide robust documentation, strategic partners or developers who purchase our Technical API Support subscription can access dedicated guidance from our Developer Relations team.

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Ready to start coding?
If you have your credentials and want to see some code, head over to our Quickstart Guide to make your first API call in minutes.

2. Unlisted Distribution

When your app is ready for the real world, you can begin Unlisted Distribution. This allows you to provide your integration to specific mutual customers.

How Unlisted Distribution Works

To ensure organizational governance, data security, and alignment with organizational policies, all activations are managed by customer organization Admins. This ensures that integration activations are handled by those responsible for organizational compliance and data control.

Activation Request: Send the name of your customer to your Flock Partnerships contact (or Flock representative if you are a customer developer).
Internal Flagging: Our team enables your Flock app specifically for that customer organization.
Admin Discovery: The customer’s Admin navigates to Admin > Integrations in the Flock web app. They can search for your app by name to begin the installation.
Governance & Permissions: Once installed, Admins may need to configure specific permissions for their end-user roles. This ensures that sensitive data is only accessible to authorized personnel.

💡 Planning Your Architecture

Sandbox vs. Production: When moving to Unlisted Distribution, when applicable, the sandbox app you’ve been using remains your private playground for testing new features. Our Partnerships and Developer Relations teams will help you finalize one or many separate Production version(s) of that app for live customer use based on the functionality you’ve developed.
Plan Tier Alignment: While you may build an app with specific API scopes (permissions), its functionality in a customer's environment is tied to their specific Flock subscription tier. Some features are only available to customers on certain paid plans.
Multi-App Strategy: Depending on your app's functionality, we might recommend splitting your integration into multiple Flock Apps. This helps ensure that specific features are only visible to the right cohort of customers (e.g., those who have purchased a specific product subscription that your app extends).

3. The Flock App Marketplace

The Flock App Marketplace is a curated directory of integrations available to Flock customers within the Flock web app. When an app is formally approved for a Marketplace Listing, it becomes visible to all Administrators within the agreed-upon customer segments, removing the need for manual one-by-one activation.

Marketplace Listing is a milestone reserved for integrations that have:

Proven Traction: A history of stable, reliable performance with your initial unlisted installs.
Strategic Segmentation: We’ll work with you to make sure your app is surfaced to the most relevant audiences (like Law Enforcement vs. Private Security).

To list your Flock app in the Flock App marketplace, please reach out to your Flock Partnerships Manager to submit your app for review.

4. Lifecycle Management & Updates

Monitoring App Health: A customer organization Admin can adjust or remove an integration at any time. We recommend that your system periodically validates the health of your access tokens; an Unauthorized error is the best way to know if an installation has been removed.
Metadata & Technical Changes: If you want to update your branding (logo, description) or technical settings (new scopes, redirect URLs), reach out to your Partnerships Manager. They’ll re-evaluate the use case with you and coordinate with our technical team to make the update happen. Major changes in functionality may require you to re-apply for marketplace listing.