It doesn’t seem to make sense that we as collaborators CANNOT access the dev dashboard at all for merchants without them setting us up as staff.
I may be completely misunderstanding, but from my viewpoint we as Shopify Partners are really required to access shops via collaborator access - not as staff. These permissions are not as expansive and it makes more sense give the nature of the support we provide.
However, at this time how are we supposed to direct shops to the “best” place to create apps? If I’m providing services with custom extensions and/or apps, it makes the most sense that this should “live” within the merchant dashboard. But based on the docs it seems there’s no pathway for collaborator accounts. Even in a recent support chat I had, support suggested that I needed to ask the merchant to add me as a staff to get access.
This doesn’t seem to make sense at all with how we are supposed to interact with shops. Am I missing something?
At the moment you are correct, there is no way to add a partner as an organization-level collaborator with app development access. You would need to be added as staff.
I’d like to hear more about your typical use case, will drop a PM.
Thanks for the feedback and side conversation Taylor.
If you need Dev Dash access, requesting that the merchant set up staff permission would be the Shopify recommendation at this time. We are looking at ways to improve this experience for partners and merchants.
This needs to be greatly improved. I’m a collaborator with dozens of clients and I’m no longer able to support them. I don’t want to manage dozens of staff logins for myself. That was the main benefit of having a single partner account. Why can’t a Shopify store owner/org owner grant a collaborator access to their dev dashboard?
A couple existing use cases for improving this and allowing store admins to grant collaborators access to their dev dashboard:
Our client had an existing app that they asked us to manage. I cannot update the webhook api version or app URL without signing into their admin as a staff member. It would be much simpler (and a better auth flow) to log in as a collaborator and be able to publish a new version of the custom app.
We develop very custom apps for some of our customers, and because of that it makes more sense for the app to live in their dev dashboard. But it would be helpful for us as collaborators to be able to modify the app or see the logs and monitoring.
@NickWesselman Please advocate on our behalf for Shopify to add this permission option!
@Sameer_Anand and @StephenGrammer We agree that merchants should be able to grant collaborator access to their organization in a way that would allow them to grant access to their dev dashboard as well.
The reason why this is not supported yet is because dev dashboard and the roles for it are organization levels roles and not shop roles. We need to add the concept of being able to grant organization level roles to a collaborator.
We are keenly aware of this gap and will update when we have a timeline to support it.
@eytan-shopify Also, it would be valuable to allow designated collaborators to manage users at the organization, enable POS access to collaborators, and to give Shop Owners an easier way to authorize collaborators to interact with Shopify Support on their behalf. Many of my clients rely on me to manage all technical aspects of their stores, which often requires submitting support requests for account or configuration changes. Currently, whenever I open a ticket with Shopify authenticated w/ my partner account and my client’s store selected, depending on the request(s), Shopify Support requires the Shop Owner (or sometimes, the Org Owner) to be added to the email thread to approve these request(s). This frequently causes issues: if the Shop/Org Owner does not respond correctly, a new support ticket is created, tickets become fragmented or lost, and responses often lack a ticket number, creating confusion for everyone involved. These issues could be avoided if Shop/Org Owners could explicitly grant collaborators or staff members specific permissions that Shopify Support recognizes as sufficient to approve and execute changes.
Huge +1 on this – this seems like a huge regression from the previous process and has caused quite a big headache for our org. Being able to give collaborators access to develop apps would be a huge win for the shopify partner/dev ecosystem.
Is there any ETA on when this will be allowed? It feels like we’ve had our wings clipped, and it’s causing real headaches with clients. I understand the need for security, I truly do, but here’s what the current process looks like for store owners when working with partners:
We have to educate them on how to locate a collaborator code.
We then send an access request with the permissions we need.
They receive a notification and are presented with options that are often very confusing: “Which role do I apply?”, “Do I just click accept?” I’ve literally had store owners ask me what platform they’re even on. So adding this much friction is causing issues. I’ve already had someone get upset and not move forward with a project because of the complications this introduced.
Now, if we want to develop an app for them under their own developer dashboard, we also have to explain: “You need to add us as a staff member so we can accept it.”
If you want it slightly more diplomatic or slightly more frustrated, I can tune it either direction.