How to integrate with Xero’s App Launcher

Implement Sign In with Xero

Sign In with Xero allows users to sign in to your app with their Xero account using Xero as an identity provider. Once you’ve implemented this for your app, integrating with the App Launcher is simple. Just expose a URL — e.g. https://app.myapp.com/xero-sign-in — for the App Launcher to direct users to.

Craft a beautiful user experience

• Your URL must automatically redirect the user into the Sign In with Xero flow.
• We strongly recommend that your URL keeps the user in the context of the Xero organisation they’ve come from. This is made possible by the tenantId query parameter that we will append to your URL (e.g. https://api-explorer.xero.com/sign-in-xero?tenantId=...).
• Your URL must not direct the user to your login screen and ask them to log in manually.

Things you should consider

• What happens if the user doesn’t have an account in your app yet? It’s likely you’ve already built a flow for this when implementing Sign In with Xero.
• What happens if the current organisation hasn’t connected to your app yet? Do you invite the user to connect that organisation? Perhaps you could direct them to their usual dashboard/homepage instead.

Try the App Launcher using API Explorer

If you want to try an existing implementation of the App Launcher, you can connect our API Explorer to one or more of your organisations. Notice that when you launch API Explorer, you’re in the context of the organisation that you came from.

Note: You’ll need to join the beta (see below) before you’ll be able to see the App Launcher in Xero.

App partners, join our beta!

We’re opening our beta to all apps that support Sign In with Xero. We plan to make the App Launcher generally available to all Xero customers during November 2021.

Follow these steps to join the Xero App Launcher beta

1. Contact api@xero.com and let us know which Xero user accounts you’ll use for testing. We’ll add them to a feature flag so they see the App Launcher in Xero.
2. Build your login URL (as described above).
3. (Recommended) Log into developer.xero.com and add the login URL to the app details of a test app. This makes your app visible for Xero organisations that have it connected (may take up to 15 mins to take effect).
4. Try it out in Xero and make sure it works as expected.
5. Add the login URL to your production app to test that it works the way you want.
6. Email api@xero.com and let us know you’re ready. We’ll start rolling out to your customers.

If you follow those steps successfully, you’ll be ready for the general release of the Xero App Launcher in November.