Building Apps in Thinkific

Use Thinkific Apps to build custom solutions for Thinkific sites!

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About This Feature

Thinkific Apps allows you to build custom solutions that extend the out-of-the-box functionality Thinkific provides. Take control of the student experience and access site data to create powerful, customized experiences for educators and their students using Apps.

How it Works

In order to build Apps in Thinkific, you will need a Thinkific Partner account. You can register for a partner account at www.thinkific.com/partners and learn more about Getting Started as a Thinkific Partner here.

All Apps are managed using your Partner account by going to partner.thinkific.com and navigating to Apps.

By creating an App on Thinkific and installing it on a client's site, your App will be able to access the Thinkific API on behalf of that site. Your App can use this access to read and write to the course creators site for the purpose of extending the existing functionality course creators have on Thinkific.

Get to know the Thinkific API in order to determine what sort of solutions you are able to build using Apps.

Creating Your First App

When creating your first App from within your Partner account, you will be expected to provide the following required information:

App Name
This will be used to identify your app to course creators when installing it on their site.
App URL
This is the URL where your app will be hosted. This link is available to course creators to easily navigate to your app.
Callback URLs
You must include at least one callback URL. Course creators will be redirected back to these white-labelled URLs when they complete the install of the app.

Once your app is created, you will be provided with a Client Key and a Client Secret. Use your key/secret to install your new App on your first Thinkific site.

Installing Your App on a Thinkific Site

When installing your App on a client's site, you can choose to authenticate using an authorization code flow, or an implicit flow depending on the purpose and function of your App.

Learn more about each flow here: OAuth Flow for App Authentication

When managing an App in your Partner tools, you have the option to quickly install the app on a client site by using the available Installation UI (see below) and a site subdomain. This tool will install your app on a qualifying site using the implicit flow.

However you can easily replicate and customize this functionality on your own pages to build an install link that your customers can use to install your app on their site.

<script type="text/javascript">
  function buildURL(subdomain) {
    var client_id = 'your_app_client_id';
    var redirect_url = 'your_redirect_url';
    var response_type = 'token'; // or 'code' for authorization code flow

    var url = 'https://' + subdomain + '.thinkific.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id=' + client_id + '&redirect_uri=' + redirect_url + '&response_type=' + response_type;
    return url;
  }
 
  function installApp(event) {
    window.location.href = buildURL(document.getElementById('subdomain').value);
    return false;
  }
</script>

<form onsubmit="return installApp()">
  <input id="subdomain" type="text" name="subdomain" placeholder="Thinkific Subdomain">
  <button class="button" type="submit" id="install">Install on Thinkific</button>
</form>

Fill Out Your App's Profile

Though not immediately required to begin building your App, there is additional information that you will be expected to add to your App settings before distributing to course creators. This includes:

Description (required)
This is a description of what your app will do for course creators. This is displayed to customers during the Apps installation flow so you'll want to make sure it accurately represents the functionality that you are providing.
Customer Support Email (required)
This email is displayed to customers during the install flow and in their App management view so they know who to contact when they require support using your App.
App Icon URL
The App Icon is displayed everywhere the App is displayed to customers.
Recommended icon size: 64px by 64px
API contact email
This email is used by Thinkific to communicate important information about your App and API changes that require your action.
App website
This is your Marketing website or landing page, which you can use specifically for marketing and selling your App.

Getting to Know the API

Once you have successfully set up authentication using the instructions above and your app is installed on a Thinkific site, you will be able to use the Thinkific API to access and make changes to site data for Thinkific sites.

Check out what is possible with the available APIs by starting or dig right into the available endpoints here: Getting started with the API

You can also begin exploring the Webhooks that are available to you here or start using the Thinkific Webhooks API.

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