Publish your apps

We recommend registering for a personal ShinyApps.io account for hosting your Shiny apps. This allows you to host up to five public apps and allows for a certain number of execution hours per month.

If you want to create more than five apps, need your app(s) to be password-protected or think you have or will exceed your execution hours quota then please get in touch via helpdesk@sheffield.ac.uk.

Data governance

You should not host Shiny apps on ShinyApps.io that rely on / include sensitive data. If you want to interactively explore sensitive data then contact helpdesk@sheffield.ac.uk to discuss options for this.

Apps as citable publications

We cannot guarantee that ShinyApps.io will exist and still be serving your app in ten years time. We therefore recommend that you create an item in ORDA containing the code for your app: this ensures that your app can be cited via a persistent DOI and that it can potentially be reinstated on a different hosting provider if ShinyApps.io disappears. If the code is stored in a GitHub repository, you can create an item by importing the repository directly via the GitHub icon when uploading. We recommend editing the description field in the ORDA entry to include the URL for where the app is currently hosted.

Create an item in ORDA

To create a new item, follow the steps below:

1. Visit My data in the dashboard.
2. Use one of the following options and remember to include your app URL in the description.
   2.1. Click the + Create a new item button, upload your code files, fill in required fields and publish.
   OR
   2.2. Click the GitHub icon then import the repository containing your code. Return to My data and click the repository you have imported, now fill all required fields to publish.
3. Once your item is approved by an administrator you can start sharing your item with the DOI.

You can also add code files to your existing items if necessary. To do this, click on the item you wish to add files to, click the browse link on the right hand side of the pop-up page to upload files. Last step is to Save changes by using the button located on the bottom right of the page.

Last updated on 02 March 2021