Something Else in the 2017 R7 Release?

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This past weekend I was working on a really messy QuickBooks 2017 file, but that's a story for another time. When I loaded the file that was an earlier release into my R7 version of QuickBooks 2017, I received an unusual SDK App warning. 

At the time, I thought more about the known issues in the file and not this SDK authorization, so I just replied "yes" and went on my way.

Several hours later my good friend, Charlie Russell, sent me an email asking if I had seen the new SDK App Authorization in QuickBooks 2017. He even sent me a screenshot of the new authorization modal window (shown below).

At first, I admit I was confused. I thought he was talking about the 2018 authorization changes, but then I remembered that I was working on the 2017 file. Another thing that bothered me was that the links in the App Authorization take you to one of those "oops" pages in the Intuit QuickBooks Community (shown below).

So you really can't find out anything about the new authorization. 

It's true that the QuickBooks stores SDK access authorization (password security) outside of the actual QuickBooks Company file. This actually started in 2017, even though this level of authorization was not previously found in the 2017 application until apparently the most recent R7. 

I previously wrote about the "Companyfilename.sds" file and its companion the .sdu (encrypted) file.  The .sds file, located in the same directory as the Company (.QBW), provides SDK applications with the address of the .sdu file that contains the encrypted file access for use by the SDK.

While nothing about this SDK Application Authorization change was mentioned in the R7 release notes from Intuit, it seems it was pushed out as part of that update.

I didn't experience any adverse issues with the new authorization, and I haven't really had too much time to put it through the ringer. If you've seen any problems, please share them with us here at Insightful Accountant by posting a comment (below) to this article.

A special thanks to my good friend Charlie Russell for bringing this to my attention and sharing his thoughts and screenshots.