For those who are new to TestFlight, there won’t be even better time to start using it, You don’t have to worry about the product much since it is integrated with Apple. Regarding the new features, everything is fine and the most interesting feature for me as a developer is the availability of multiple builds, It really useful in many scenarios like time consumption, comparison testing and so on.
Key features added/updated in TestFlight:
- What is TestFlight?
- Multiple Build Support
- Enhanced Groups
- Improved Tester Management
- Additional information
- Notes
- What is TestFlight?
TestFlight is an Apple product using which you can able to test your app(iOS, WatchOS and tvOS) by inviting users before you release them in App Store. This can use used for collecting feedback about your app and make is even better.
Key points about TestFlight are,
- You Just need Testers/Users email id for adding them as a tester.
- It’s free of cost.
- Multiple Build Support
Now TestFlight lets you distribute and test multiple builds at the same time. So testers can choose from a number of builds to test from. So tester can choose any build from the list of builds available.
If you select any app in the TestFlight app, you will be shown Install option for installing the latest version and there is an option called “Previous Builds” in which other builds will be listed, using which you can able to install any build as you like.
- Enhanced Groups
Groups have been changed in iTunes connect. Now you can create groups of TestFlight users as you like. And you can send/assign separate/multiple builds for individual groups and it will be available for testing for those individual group members.
By default, Apple has added all of your existing external testers to the group “External Testers”, which you can edit at any time.
If you have created groups previously, And If you want to create groups similar to the previously created groups, the Admin users can able to download/export existing groups and import them to TestFlight groups. For more information on managing testers and use, groups check out the link more about testflight groups.
Creating Group:
- You can create TestFlight groups as flows
Choose your app in iTunesConnect -> TestFlight -> Click New Group(+)
- You can edit group name anytime later as you want.
- You can create multiple groups as needed.
Add Testers in the group:
Testers can be added to the group in multiple ways as follows,
- Add New Testers : Here Email address(Mandatory), FirstName & LastName (Optional)
- Add Existing Testers
- Import from CSV
Sending build for groups:
You can able to assign single/multiple builds for individual groups. You can send build to a group as follows,
- Choose your app in iTunesConnect -> TestFlight -> Choose the group -> Builds -> Click Add Build(+)
- List of builds will be displayed and will be asked to “Select a Build to Test”. Choose the build which you like to send for the group and click Next.
- Then you will be asked to enter “Testing Information” where you need to enter the what you want the users to test in this build. This information will be available to testers in all groups to which it’s shared.
- Then you choose “Submit for Review”. The build will undergo for “Beta App Review” and will be notified to the users/testers once the review process is completed.
- You can also choose another build for the same group. Then all the builds added for that group will be available to that group testers.
Stopping testing a build:
You can able to stop a build from testing either for a tester or group as you needed using the following steps.
- Choose your app in iTunesConnect -> TestFlight -> iOS(under BUILDS) -> Choose a build -> Testers
- You can remove a particular group or tester as you needed from here.
- Or you can choose “Expire Build” to make the build expire for all the testers.
- Improved Tester Management
- Now the testers can continue testing a build even when the app goes live on the AppStore.
- iTunes connect users can access all the active builds of the app. By which user can able to compare and test any builds as they want.
- It’s easy now for resending invitations to testers whose invitation is yet to accept.
- Additional information
- The number of days for a TestFlight build to expire has been extended to 90 days, Previously it was 60 days.
- Notes
- You can add 25 Internal testers per app.
- You can add 2000 External testers per app.
- If there is no builds available for testing then that particular app won’t be listed/shown in the TestFlight app.
Conclusion:
In this blog post, we saw what are the new features in Testflight. Everything has little cons in it like the “Beta App Review” process for sending builds to Groups in this case. But its much needed since those builds are for external testing. You can start using the TestFlight and let us know what you feel about the new version.
Image Courtesy:
Apple Videos: https://itunespartner.apple.com/en/apps/videos#testflight-beta-testing
–
Bharath R,
iOS Developer,
Mallow Technologies