MoodMonkey

Getting Started With the Desktop App

Install the MoodMonkey desktop app on Windows, connect it with your API key, and add your employees so the daily check-in pop-up starts working.

Updated July 9, 2026Download PDF
In This Guide

Before You Start

You need three things:

  • A MoodMonkey administrator account on app.moodmonkey.io
  • One or more Windows computers (the desktop app is Windows-only for now)
  • Administrator rights on those computers

Tip: Rolling out MoodMonkey for a whole team? Ask your system administrator to handle steps 2 and 3. Installing the app and editing its configuration file require Windows administrator rights.

Step 1: Create an API Key

The desktop app identifies your company with an API key. You create one in the web portal:

  1. Log in to your administrator account on app.moodmonkey.io.
  2. Go to the Settings page.
  3. In the API keys section, press Add key.
  4. Enter a name for the key, pick a validity date, and press Save.
  5. Copy the generated key value and keep it somewhere safe. You paste it into the app in step 3.

The API keys section on the Settings page

Important: The key value is visible only once, right after you create it. If you lose it, create a new key.

The dialog showing the generated API key value once

Step 2: Install the App on Each Computer

  1. In the portal, go to Settings and press the Download app button in the top right corner.
  2. Save the MSI installer on the computer where MoodMonkey should run.
  3. Run the installer. The app needs the .NET Desktop Runtime 8: if it is missing, the installer shows an extra dialog that lets you install it first.
  4. Walk through the installation: allow the installer to make changes, pick a destination folder, and close the setup when it finishes.
  5. Check that the app landed in the destination folder. By default that is C:\Program Files\MoodMonkey BV\MoodMonkey. In Services you should also see the MoodMonkey Updater service running. It keeps the app up to date automatically.

The Download app button on the Settings page

Tip: Installing on many computers? You can install silently with default settings from an elevated command prompt: msiexec /i MoodMonkeySetup.msi REBOOT=R /q /norestart

Step 3: Connect the App With Your API Key

The app reads its configuration from the file appsettings.json in the installation folder. This is the step where most installations go wrong, so take it slowly.

Open the installation folder. Go to C:\Program Files\MoodMonkey BV\MoodMonkey in File Explorer and find appsettings.json.

The appsettings.json file selected in the MoodMonkey installation folder

Make sure you can edit the file. Right-click appsettings.json, choose Properties, and open the Security tab. Select your user or the Users group under "Group or user names" and check that Write is allowed.

The Security tab of the appsettings.json properties dialog

If Write is not allowed, press Edit, select the user or group, tick the Allow box next to Write, and confirm with OK.

The permissions dialog with Write allowed for the Users group

Paste your API key. Open appsettings.json in Notepad and paste the key from step 1 between the quotes of the ApiKey field. Save the file.

The appsettings.json file opened in Notepad with the ApiKey field highlighted

Start the app. Double-click MoodMonkey.exe in the installation folder. The app runs in the background; you can confirm it is running in Task Manager.

Important: The app reads appsettings.json only when it starts. If you change the API key while the app is running, start MoodMonkey.exe again. The new instance automatically replaces the old one.

Step 4: Add Your Employees

Every person who should receive the pop-up must be registered as an employee, and the employee ID must exactly match their Windows login name.

  1. In the portal, go to the Employees page.
  2. Press New employee and choose Add manually.
  3. Fill in the form. In the ID field, enter the person's Windows login name.
  4. Save the employee.

The employee form with the ID field filled with a Windows login name

Not sure what someone's Windows login name is? Open Command Prompt on their computer and run whoami. The part after the backslash is the login name:

C:\Users\anna> whoami
office-pc\anna

In this example the ID is anna.

Important: Use the login name, not the person's display name. Windows may show someone as "Chris Prime" in menus while the actual login name is chris. When in doubt, run whoami.

Tip: Adding a lot of people at once? Go to Employees, press New employee, and choose Batch upload to import a CSV file.

Step 5: Check That It Works

With the app running and your employees registered, the check-in pop-up appears at the display time you configured on the Settings page.

A few things that are useful to know:

  • The app checks for pending check-ins right after it starts and then every ten minutes, so configuration changes take effect within ten minutes.
  • The app also schedules a check at the exact display time, so the pop-up appears on time even between polls.
  • Responses show up in your dashboard right away.

If the pop-up does not appear, walk through the troubleshooting list below.

Troubleshooting: The Pop-Up Does Not Appear

Work through these causes in order; the most common ones come first.

  1. The employee ID does not match the Windows login name. Run whoami on the employee's computer and compare the part after the backslash with the ID in the portal. They must match exactly.
  2. No seats available. Every registered employee needs an available seat in your subscription. Check the Account & Billing page: if your team outgrew your seats, the pop-up silently stops appearing for the overflow.
  3. The app started before you saved the API key. The configuration file is read at startup only. Start MoodMonkey.exe again; it replaces the running instance.
  4. The app is not running. Look for MoodMonkey in Task Manager. If it is missing, start MoodMonkey.exe from the installation folder.

The app writes log files to the Logs folder inside the installation folder. If you are still stuck, mail them to [email protected] and we will figure it out together.