Is it possible to publish a private Apps Script add-on for Google Sheets that anyone with a link can install?

Question

I have been tasked with developing a Google Sheets add-on that local middle/high school teachers can use with their students. I have a working prototype, but currently we can only distribute it by having teachers copy the container Sheet to their drive, then having students copy it from their teachers. Obviously this is messy, so I've been looking into publishing the add-on.

Is there a way to easily share a privately published add-on without manually approving each user or adding all those users to a domain? I need to be able to maintain control over the script so that bug reports/feature requests can be addressed, and the script needs to be able to be executed by an arbitrary number of students at any given time.

Answer 1

In order to publish an add-on you would need to create a GCP project to publish it.

When doing so, you have the option to make it private if you have a Google Workspace account as presented below:

As suggested by the steps provided over this documentation.

As an alternative for your case. The App Script projects are basically Drive files. You should be able to apply the same permissions and rules to it, it could help you with the students and the school. I notice some add-ons only share the link and ask you to make a copy or just add it as an add-on with the feature for their accounts.

If you are looking to do the same, you should be able to create a Google Group and use the option to share the file only with people that has been specific shared with.

1. Go to https://groups.google.com/
2. Create a group for students and teachers (separate them if you want)
3. This would create a special group email address that you can add to Drive

Example of the group email and the Drive interface: