How to test alexa skills for multiple countries / regions? - testing

I successfully published my first skill in US and DE. While extending to more regions I run into account linking problems that I cannot reproduce in DE.
Is there any best practice of efficient testing in multiple countries before triggering the certification.
So far I read that you should change the language setting of the amazon account - which seems very unconvenient if you have to test for 6+ countries. I am seeing two possibilities which both have flaws:
Note: My developer account is also my private family account which is also used by my wife.
If I create a new Amazon-Account just for testing, I cannot access the dev stage skill since the owner is the private family account, right?
If I change the country settings on the private family account, my wife loses the link to the Kinde library and can't use any of the remaining shopping services, right? Furthermore it is tedious to change these settings multiple times a day during development...
How are you testing?
Is there anything else available for testing and debugging that I just do not know about, yet?
Thanks in advance!

To test the skill, you can use the Alexa Simulator from the Alexa Developer Website. Use the "Test" tab to switch between regions / languages and use the text box or microphone button to test the skill.
For account linking, and in particular, using new Amazon accounts. You can use the Beta Test functionality to invite your new account to test the skill. This can be found under the "Manage Beta Test" and will let you invite people by email to test the skill. This will let you resolve your first issue.

Related

Google Play: Testing in-app-purchases using settings from different country?

I'm testing my React Native app by setting up a closed beta testing track on the Google Play console. The main thing I'm testing is in-app-purchases (IAPs) whose prices vary depending on region, so I want to be able to simulate Canadian and American accounts. I tried changing the region in the Google Play app settings, but can't change the country. Does anyone have experience doing this?
it is not easy to test this, but the way to do this is by creating two new google accounts one for Canada and one for US and use a VPN to totally simulate users from these countries.

Whats the difference/Restrictions/Rules for Android Alpha and Beta testing?

I wish to carry out pre release testing of my current Android Application.
My requirements for this testing are:-
My Application must not appear in the Google Play Store or...
Only invited testers can see the Applications Play Store Page
Only invited users can participate in testing.
Testers do not have to have a gmail account.
Total number of testers < 10,000.
Testers are automatically contacted with download link.
From what I have read (Chatted) on Google sites my choice is between Alpha or Beta testing.
for Beta testing
Open beta
Use an open beta when you want any user who has the link to be able to join your beta with just one click.
One of the advantages of an open beta is that it allows you to scale to a large number of testers.
However, you can also limit the maximum number of users who can join.
Closed beta
Using email addresses – If you want to restrict which users can access your beta, you have a new option:
you can now set up a closed beta using lists of individual email addresses which you can add individually
or upload as a .csv file. These users will be able to join your beta via a one-click opt-in link.
Closed beta
with Google+ community or Google Group – This is the option that you’ve been using today, and you can continue
to use betas with Google+ communities or Google Groups. You will also be able to move to an open beta
while maintaining your existing testers.
Beta satisfies almost all of my requirements however I cannot allow my application to be searchable on the Play Store and I do not want to require my testers to have/use a gmail account so Beta testing is out.
So my only choice is Alpha.
I am still not clear on the "flavours" of Alpha testing available.
If I have to manually distribute the Alpha app link why do I upload a list of emails?
What purpose does the uploaded list of emails have?
Is the list of uploaded emails used to control access to the Alpha apk?
Can I run Alpha test groups of 1000's of testers.
As far as I know, it is not possible to invite a user to test without a Google account (but a Google account can be created without a GMail address). Besides, alpha (internal) testing is only available for 100 people, and closed beta testing is only available for 2,000 people. Therefore, I think it is not possible to do a closed testing for 10,000 users with arbitrary email addresses.
Take a look at this Google support answer for more details.
Hope this helps,
Xavi

iTunes Connect demo account in existing live database for app submittal?

I'm submitting my first app through iTunes Connect. It is a social networking community so I have to provide a demo account for the submission. My app already has a live database of users as there is currently an active web version.
I'm new to this and confused as to how I should handle this. Should I be creating a demo account that will not show up in any other live user's search results? Are the testers going to be attempting to interact with other live users? I am assuming I will need to show the various functions of the app, like messaging and events. In that case should I be creating a few "demo" users for the testers to interact with?
Alternatively, should I be linking them to the development version and development database? If that's the case, then the build that I send them would only be a development build then?
I am confused on how this is supposed to work and can't seem to find any information to help?
In my experience, you'll need to give them the production version that will go into the store. So not the development build.
When we submit an app for approval, it seems to get installed and activated on a couple of devices, but nothing much ever happens. They barely use it, as far as we can tell. We can tell that it's installed and run. We have previously been rejected when the network connectivity wasn't working right, so we know that they do look at the app after it's installed.
I'd suggest you make them an account that looks relatively anonymous (or even "Test Account" which you real users are hardly likely to try to interact with). You could create another account and say "If you want to send a message, send it to account xxxx". We've never had them interact with our app enough to utilise the suggestions we've made.
If you have an active / inactive flag, you could think about making these accounts inactive once the app is approved, then re-activating it when you next want to submit your app.

Apple Developer account - how can I automatically switch team?

Is there a way to automatically (i.e. programatically, via a specified URL, or by some other means) switch team after logging into the Apple Developer portal, but without using Fastlane? I have the following scenario:
I have a user who is admin on 2 different Apple Developer accounts
I want to log into the Apple Developer portal as the user, and do the following:
Access the 'Certificates, IDs & Profiles' section, and switch to using the team that I specify
Access iTunes Connect using the team that I specify
The reason I need this is that I want to automate logging into the Apple Developer portal and perform some maintenance tasks against a specific team, and Fastlane isn't an option right now.
I've tried using the following URL for accessing the 'Certificates, IDs & Profiles' section:
https://developer.apple.com/account/ios/certificate/?teamId=MY_TEAM_ID
however it doesn't switch to the specified team. I've tried a similar thing for iTunes Connect using the 'switch' parameter on the URL, but that doesn't automatically switch either.
It's a little bit tricky:
For the account overview page, the different links are working:
https://developer.apple.com/account/#/overview/ABCDEFGHI
But for the actual certificates page, Apple saves the team ID in local storage. If you change it here, it will show/get you the page you want.
As iTunes Connect is a completely different site, the team selection seems to be based on cookie values, but them look to be encrypted or something.
It really depends on what kind of "Maintenance tasks" you want to do.

From my service how do I listen for when a user clicks on a desktop icon or app from within the application menu?

This question is no longer active - I have been officially notified by the company that we're dropping Android and going with a system that is specifically designed for business use.
In our two sister companies we installed almost 500 android phones assuming they'd have security capabilities similar to Linux that would allow us to provide business phones to our employees but limit their access to apps. Unfortunately we've since found out that we were hugely mistaken. Android has decided that whoever has possession of the phone should have full access to everything. Unfortunately for us this has been a business nightmare, with huge data overages, employees downloading and installing anything and everything they can get their hands on from Play Store, the apps we need to run constantly being stopped by the task manager because too many apps are running at the same time with our employees arguing that the apps are buggy or the phone is broken. Due to our type of operation, the phones are passed from one employee to another often for weeks at a time before a supervisor or technician has access to them.
We absolutely need to either secure the phones or get rid of them. So...
From within a service, how do I capture when an employee clicks on an unauthorized app either from the desktop or from the applications menu? I've spent the last 2 days searching Google for an answer, but have turned up nothing. I know it can be done, because I have a couple of apps on my personal phone that do so.
We're using Android 2.2
Why not uninstall Google play store from the phones? And any other apps which are not needed?
It might be easiest too just install a parental control app. Here's an example, though this particular one may not meet all your needs: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiddoware.kidsplace
Have a look at the 3CX Mobile Device Manager. The sign up process is free and easy. Then you just need to download the app to each phone from GooglePlay and get it set up. I would be interested in knowing if you proceed with it and if it does everything you need it to.