Hi I’m Jennifer 👋
I am part of the Support Team here at Intercom 👍
We often see confusion between creating new Workspaces live in production, creating Test Workspaces and creating Developer Workspaces. There are 3 different types of Workspaces that can be created.
Intercom Apps (instances) are called Workspaces, whereas Integrations are called Apps. We've made this change to avoid confusion for developers who are building apps on our Framework.
However, we have not renamed the "app_ID", as changing the name of that to "workspace_id"would have been a breaking change for integrations with Intercom across web apps and websites.
To create a new Workspace, you can click on your avatar in the lower left-hand corner. You then hover over your current workspace's name and a pop-out should appear. At the bottom of the "Search for a workspace" pop-out, click "Add a new workspace..." 👍
If you are trying to create a Test Workspace, you should go to your general settings.
You'll then be directed to your General Settings screen where you need to tick the box next to 'Test Workspace', and click Save.
You'll then receive a confirmation message at the top of the screen and your test workspace ID (App ID) will be displayed next to the 'Test Workspace' check box that you selected, as shown below.
Make sure to add the Intercom snippet to your non-prod environment. When you do, your test workspace will inherit the messaging abilities of your production workspace in Intercom but it will have its own workspace id (app ID), to keep data separate.
You need to make sure to update your Intercom settings so that the app_id field has the correct value based on the environment that your site/app is running in. If you're using identity verification, you'll need to go into your setup guide to get the new API secret for your test workspace.
To find your test workspace hover over your avatar, then hover over your real workspace and you'll see the test workspace you've created.
We recommend using the test workspace to practice sending data into Intercom. There's not a way to push/migrate your messages or workflows from the test workspace to your production workspace.
Developer workspaces can be set up by anyone here. You do not have to be an existing Intercom customer in order to create a dev workspace. This workspace is intended for use in your development/staging environment so that you can test things out before adding it to production.
You will click New App at the bottom of the page. Then, add an app name and select the workspace you'd like it to be part of.
Finally, Create app👇
If you have Regional Data Hosting outside of the US, Test workspaces are supported and should work as normal. Developer Workspaces are not supported in EU data hosting, they are used for public apps (listed on the app store) and they are typically published in the US and synced to EU or AU.
One thing to note is that DEV workspaces have restrictions in place, such as the availability of outbound email, push notifications, etc. You also won't be able to add any individuals who are not a part of your main workspace.
Here is a list of restrictions Developer workspaces have in place:
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No outbound emailing
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No push notifications
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Articles cannot be set live
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Messenger includes a watermark showing that it's linked to a dev workspace
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A maximum of 20 users or leads. If that limit is reached, the system will delete the oldest contact asynchronously
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Developer workspaces cannot be converted into production workspaces
Hope you find this useful 🙌