Introducing new GitHub App with improved security 🔐✨

Feb 28, 2023

Today we're introducing a safer, more convenient way to integrate GitHub with Screenful: the GitHub App.

It has the same features as our Analytics & Reports OAuth App, with additional benefits:

  • Improved security. The new app uses GitHub App's permission system and doesn't need full repository access to load projects, issues and pull requests.

  • Account-level authorization. Authorize the app only once during the installation. Adding more data sources afterwards doesn't require additional authorization.

In short, we combine tighter security and ease of use with our powerful analytics and reporting capabilities

Getting started with the Screenful GitHub App

Go to the Analytics & Reports App page and click Install:

Select the organization where you want to install the app and the repositories to authorize. You can provide access to all repositories or pick the ones you want to authorize.

What is great with GitHub Apps (compared to the OAuth apps) is that you don’t need to grant write access to any of your repositories or projects as permissions are read-only.

After authorization, you'll be redirected to Screenful to create a Screenful account, add data sources, and build charts and reports.

Managing GitHub Apps

After you create and register a GitHub App, you can change permissions, transfer ownership, and delete the app within the GitHub UI. You can see a list of installed apps at SettingsGitHub apps

Clicking Configure opens a page that allows to adjust the repository access

From the same page, you can also suspend or remove the app:

Notice that suspending or removing the app does not remove the Screenful account. To remove the Screenful account, go to AccountBilling within the Screenful UI and click Remove account.

What does it mean to existing Screenful accounts?

Existing Screenful accounts can't currently be connected to the GitHub App.

If you still want to try the new app, you can create a separate Screenful account for it. Just use a different email when signing up after installing the app.

The introduction of the GitHub App does not require any actions from the existing Screenful accounts using GitHub data sources, they continue functioning as previously. New features will be available for all users.

Let us know if you have questions or feedback by contacting hello@screenful.com. To stay on the loop, read our blog, or follow us on LinkedIn

This article was written by Sami Linnanvuo

Screenful is a company that turns data into visual stories. You can folllow Screenful on LinkedIn, Facebook, or X.