Approving third party apps

[Taylor Huston]

I'm an Atlassian SME, but most of my experience has been with DC. Just started as an admin for a Cloud site. One thing that's come up a few times is approving third party integrations. What will happen is some user will try and plug something into our Jira and they always get the message "Your admin must authorize this app for the site "webflow.atlassian.net" before the app can access your account."

I cannot for the life of me find where to do that in the Org settings. I can't find any kind of a "pending app requests" page or anything.

Now if I'm made an admin of the other app in question and initiate the connection from that end it allows me to do it and then it just works. But that seems very roundabout and unnecessary.

Is there a way to do this without having to go through those steps?

[Marc -Devoteam-]

Hi @Taylor Huston 

Within Administration, you need to go to Platform Experiences, then Sites, and Select your site.

Within the site go to Connected Apps and the Settings option, make sure the setting "User installed apps" is set to "Allowed".

[Taylor Huston]

But that would just give them blanket access to integrate anything they wanted without my approval?

The problem is when a user is inside an app and they click the "connect to Jira" button or whatever it is called they get the message:

"Your admin must authorize this app for the site "webflow.atlassian.net" before the app can access your account."

Which implies that there is somewhere in the org admin settings where I can see that request and click an "authorize" or something similar button. But there isn't? The only way for me to approve it is to get a login to that other app and initiate the connection from there and when I do it recognizes that I am an Org Admin and let's me approve it. But that's such a roundabout way to do it.

[Marc -Devoteam-]

Hi @Taylor Huston 

Yes, but this is unfortunate the only option you have. You can always disable the access again.

[Mikael Sandberg]

Hi @Taylor Huston,

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

The app interest can be found under admin.atlassian.com > Apps > User requests and under the User interests tab. Here is a KB that gives you  more information about the process.

[Taylor Huston]

Isn't that just for Apps from the Atlassian marketplace (and don't get me started on the confusion of calling those Apps instead of Plugins, which is what they are)? But it doesn't show if someone just clicks the "connect to Jira" button from some other SaaS app somewhere.

[Mikael Sandberg]

Yes, that is only for Marketplace apps. Third-party apps that the user installed/granted access to is under Insights > API token activity, since the user is granting the app to impersonate them and that is done via APIs.

[Taylor Huston]

But that only shows me things that have already been approved and the ability to revoke them.

The problem is when a user is inside an app and they click the "connect to Jira" button or whatever it is called they get the message:

"Your admin must authorize this app for the site "webflow.atlassian.net" before the app can access your account."

Which implies that there is somewhere in the org admin settings where I can see that request and click an "authorize" or something similar button. But there isn't? The only way for me to approve it is to get a login to that other app and initiate the connection from there and when I do it recognizes that I am an Org Admin and let's me approve it. But that's such a roundabout way to do it.

[Mikael Sandberg]

That all depends on the third-party app, in some cases an admin has to do the initial connection between Jira and the app, in order cases it will just create an API token and connect that way. But from an Atlassian standpoint there is nothing you can do on the admin side to set that up or approve/deny it.