Forum Discussion
Is Google Play Closed tracks for testing only?
Hi Moombas,
Thanks for your reply.
So, if a developer want to deliver apps to us it "should" be done via Private track, right?
In that case it also means that the developer need to create a a separate package ID just for us?
I see a gap here, a problem for the developers.
If it is not supported to use Closed tracks, where a developer can create multiple tracks/versions and invite multiple customers, then they have to use Private tracks which means that they have to go through massive administration, creating separate package ID´s for each customer, and also build separate tracks for each version and for each customer.
This will most likely result in that developers won´t offer that option, since it´s too complex, which then will result in big companies, like the one I represent, to not choose Android as plattform since we lack control, and that would not be good for Google.
I understand that the intent with closed tracks maybe wasn't to solve use cases like ours, but what is it exactly that is a risk of using it like this?
Kind Regards
//Niklas
This is the exact position we take within our org. We develop enterprise applications that are not published to Public play that need tight version control for each of our end customers. We have ZERO appetite to provide custom compiles of the base APK with unique bundle IDs for every customer just to get around limitations of the Android Enterprise ecosystem. As a result of this our typical firm stance is that a custom DPC based EMM is required so that our customers can have comprehensive version control over the apps that they're installing since their EMM can install it directly on devices. Android Enterprise still falls very short when it comes to proper version control in a line of business device setting so we are generally stuck pushing people away from AMAPI / cloudDPC toward hybrid EMMs that offer Google Play AND direct APK installs. In edge cases where we don't have a choice we leverage the closed testing tracks concept but even that is a lot of administrative overhead because we run into other limitations like Intune only supporting the display of 10 closed test tracks. We have 100+ versions of our application and counting and therefore have to carefully choose which 10 versions to grant to each Org ID. The large majority of our end customers however opt to go with custom DPC based EMMs since they aren't willing to expose themselves to production risks caused by Google Play based mission critical app installs.
I am very much aware that I am swimming against the current with this stance but this is based on years of personal experience with Android Enterprise and constant re-evaluation of it's capabilities. App installs via Google Play are just not reliable or robust enough for line-of-business app and device environments.
