After a period of our app being in the preview stages, we would want to release it to everyone. Or, we might just be going straight to a full public release. Either way, we want to move the app from the Alpha cannel and into the Production channel.
Before we can release an app to the Production channel, we will need to have uploaded an app the either the Alpha or Beta channels. We can upload directly to Production, but this is not recommended.
Moving an app from Alpha or Beta into Production, is just a matter of a few clicks:
- First, we navigate to the APK section on the Developer Console.
- Next, we navigate to either the Alpha or Beta tab, depending on where our current release package is.
- Then, we click on the Promote… dropdown on the APK that we want to push to the production channel, and select the Promote to Prod item:
Pushing an APK to a new release channel
- In the dialog that appears, ensure that we have completed any release notes, and then click on the Move and publish button, which can be seen here:
The promote APK dialog
- This publishes our APK to production, where all Google Play users can view it. The publication process may take a few hours to propagate through Google Play, so the app may not appear immediately.
When we release a new version of our app to Google Play, we want to first do some user acceptance testing. After internal testing, which ensures that the app runs smoothly, we can start the rollout to a smaller subset of the users through the use of the testing channels. As new features are added and existing features changed, it is important that the users like the changes. The subset of the users that will be testing the app in the real world can use the testing channel to provide valuable feedback, before the app is published to the general public.
Once the testing phase is complete, we want to take that app and move it from a testing channel into the production channel. With Google Play, this is easy to do, and only requires a few console actions.
We can select any package, from either the Alpha or Beta channels, and move it to the production channel. We can also move the package from the Alpha channel into the Beta channel and perform more testing for a different set of users. This way, we can provide a phased rollout through first the Alpha, then the Beta, and then the Production channels.