Serious Barriers in App Submission Process

App Marketplace
1

The App Submission & feedback process has some serious issues. I’m not sure that I can proceed further with my review until some additional help is provided.

  1. The test plan requires significant documentation, but only allows 2000 characters of text and DOES NOT have an option to upload video or other files.
  2. Zoom does not provide any examples of successful test plans. (This could prevent all developer complaints about the App Submission process)
  3. Some reviewer feedback is boilerplate and indicates that the reviewer did not take a close look at the app submission. This causes confusion and wasted time on both ends.

I recognize that people have already posted about this, but a new post is needed since I don’t see a way around some of these issues.

  1. “Monetization: Test Plan for each Plan”

My reviewer told me that I need to provide a test plan for each monetization tier of my app. This is not mentioned anywhere in the support documentation. Moreover, the “release notes” text input only allows 2000 characters, which was barely enough for testing one monetization tier.

Although the support documentation suggests uploading a walkthrough video, there is no option to upload files on the App Submission page.

Additionally, the test plan requirements are extremely unclear.

  • On the App Submission page, they’re called “release notes”.
  • The “Learn More” link takes you to a “common reasons for rejection” page which only has general information.
  • From there, the “What is a test plan” link takes you to just a forum post that does NOT contain all necessary information, nor an example, nor mention of the requirement for testing steps for EACH monetization plan.
  • The release notes only permit 2000 characters, which is far from enough.
  • There was not, as I could see, anywhere to upload a video or other document.
    • Note: Maybe there was, but since the App Submission page is blank, I can’t look for it.

Zoom should provide examples of successful test plans in order to avoid further posts in the forum asking why their submission was denied.

  1. “RTMS Developer Pack Requirement”

I requested RTMS access from the sales site in August, and got access about 3-4 weeks later. My reviewer is now telling me that I need to request the Developer Pack (“which removes the limited concurrent stream cap”). I went to the sales form to request it, but this looks exactly like the form I filled out 4 months ago.

Also, the reviewer says, “If you’ve already submitted the form, simply follow up with them to complete your purchase.” What do I have to “purchase” in order to use RTMS in my app – is this a new requirement?

  • (1) If the request to Sales is going to take 3-4 weeks to fulfill, then I need to know this now, as it will impact my app’s release and marketing timeline.
  • (2) If I have to pay additional for use of RTMS, then this should be clear in the developer documentation.
  • (3) If this “Developer Pack” is the same RTMS I requested and received before, then the reviewer should not be telling me to fill out this form again - it’s a waste of my and Zoom’s time.
  1. “Surface Features Selected”

My app opens and users interact with it inside the Zoom meeting client, and I have “Meetings”, “Rooms”, and “Events” selected as surfaces for my app. However, the reviewer calls this out as a problem:

Hello team, we see that you have selected the ‘Meeting’, ‘Room’, ‘Events’ product under the Surface tab of your app’s features section. Unless your app opens and users interact with this product inside of the Zoom meeting client, please unselect this option. If it does, please include this information on your documentation and test plan.

It’s unclear where in my documentation I would need to mention this, and exactly what I would need to say. It is already clear through context, screenshots, and the general description of my app that this opens within the Zoom meeting client.

If this is just more boilerplate reviewer feedback, it’s an example of the unnecessary confusion within this process.

  1. App Submission page is BLANK after submission

The App Submission page is where I entered my test plan and other info, but after submitting for review, the page is blank (see screenshot). So when the reviewer says I need to edit my test plan, for instance, I can’t see the original and I have to rewrite from scratch.

[Edit] Once I acknowledged all the issues, the content appeared again. However, if “acknowledgement” means that I’ve remediated everything and the reviewer should check again - this doesn’t help me. I have to make some significant edits to my test plan, but I can’t edit the original test plan until I have acknowledged all the issues.

Thank you.

2

Hello,

I understand your frustration, but most people just create test plans or videos and place them on Google Docs or other resources, so the 2000 limit does not apply. It’s not compulsory to use the release notes.

Secondly, we call out a lot of things, especially when testing hasn’t been completed, until we confirm via testing that the surface features are used properly, we cannot take your word for it.

In relation to acknowledging the notes from the reviewer. You can choose to click acknowledge, or you can respond to the note by asking a question requesting additional information on how to complete a specific option called out. If we realize there is a blocker, we usually suggest a meeting, and more than likely, the blockers get resolved.

Please provide the name of your app, and I can provide a detailed report of your app review and help with any blockers affecting your review.

Regards, Kwaku

3

@kwaku.nyante Thanks for the reply.

Test Plan Requirements Unclear

Just to helpfully point you to areas in need of improvement, the test plan section isn’t clear. There actually doesn’t seem to be a section/field called “Test Plan”, nor are there instructions to include a google doc link anywhere - unless I am completely missing some part of the submission flow? These couple of improvements would help a lot.

Perspective for Test Plan

One big issue I’m running into is with regards to writing the test plan for the perspective of an admin/reviewer. What steps do I give them to authorize my app? I know how I authorize the app from the Marketplace dashboard - and I know how users will authorize after the app is published - but how does a reviewer authorize? What do they see / what do they have access to? (My reviewer got an error message while trying to authorize, but it looks like they tried some way I didn’t expect.)

For instance, should I assume they’re seeing the same Marketplace Production pages I am - and tell them to hit the Preview button to go to my listing page, and then Add for Myself button, etc? … or should I tell them to start elsewhere?

RTMS

Another big issue is the RTMS Developer Kit. I requested RTMS access from the Sales team in August and waited for 3 weeks with no reply - even though I called them every other day to follow up. It wasn’t until I went to the developer office hours to ask for access that it was granted. (And by the way, there were 2 other developers in attendance who had also waited for a long time.)

So when my reviewer tells me to fill out this form with Sales, I don’t know (a) if it’s the same access I already have, and (b) if I will have to wait for weeks again for a response, or should skip it and go straight to office hours.

My app is called Echo AI, by the way - thank you!