Mobile App Distribution done right - Updraft News January 2020

Looking back on 2019 we have achieved quite a bunch: Not only did we develop many new features last year, we also released a complete redesign of the main landing page and published several new blog posts. At the same time, we were able to win many new users for Updraft. Thanks a lot for signing up and trusting in our mobile app distribution tool Updraft!

Looking forward, we have big plans this year too: During the last weeks, we worked intensively on the tool page and on the iterative development of existing features. I would like to introduce you to the most important changes and show you how you can improve the development and deployment of your applications in order to be on the market and in the app stores even earlier.

Working with different deployment environments

Mobile app development is complex. The testing of an application should always take place on different deployment environments to reduce the risk of releasing bugs to the production environment.

Deployment Environment: in computer science, it's described as a system in which a computer program is deployed and executed. Depending on the development progress of a program or an application, we made a distinction between different environments such as: Development, Build, Test, QA, Staging or Production.

During the creation of your app, you have now the possibility to choose your environment from a dropdown list or you can set a custom name.

Project member permissions

Maybe you develop software yourself and know how complicated the development of the user management of a tool can be. We at Updraft have tried different ways and still get the feedback that it is incomprehensible. We are now trying a new way again and are going down a similar route as other well-known software tools that are already doing user management successfully. 

We now add members of a project directly on project level. So it is easy to decide who should have access to a project and to invite existing Updraft users to a project.

Members with the user role “Admin” have full CRUD access rights to a project. 

Members with the user role “Mobile-User” only have access to Updraft via a web app and only have access to their projects within the web app. They can download the latest builds there. 

Someone who registers on Updraft receives the user role “Owner” and has full CRUD rights over the whole organization.

If you need more information you find everything in our documentation.

Notify all your app testers automatically about new builds

For each application, you can set whether your iOS or Android testers and groups on your distribution list should receive an automatic notification when a new build is uploaded to your app. If you have activated the automatic notification, all your testers and groups on the distribution list will receive an email with the possibility to download the latest build.

So once you have configured the app and created a distribution list with your testers and groups, you don't have to worry about distributing your app anymore. Everything happens automatically.

Is your App ready to test?

If you want the distribution of your app to be stopped or interrupted, you now have the option to disable the ability to download builds. This way you can control that already distributed apps are not downloadable anymore, for example when you finish the beta-testing of your app.

You can deactivate the download option for any app you like. You can always reactivate your app and your users can download it again with the same URL.

You need a feature or are looking for an app distribution alternative

If you are currently looking for a new tool to easily distribute an app to your team or your employees, try Updraft: it’s free. 

If you are looking for a new feature just visit our github page: https://github.com/appswithlove/getupdraft

You now can create feature requests or bugs directly on there. We are looking forward to your messages!