BlackBerry UEM Now Supports Google Play Testing Tracks

BlackBerry® UEM 12.14 and BlackBerry UEM Cloud now have added support for Google Play Testing Tracks. The UEM administrator can select the production release or a release from a testing track and assign it to individual users or user groups. Different users on the same BlackBerry UEM can be assigned different tracks, allowing an admin to have core users on the production release and assign alpha or beta tracks to early adopters. Let’s walk through how you can do this.

The steps in this article cover configuring testing tracks of an app already configured for production deployment using Android™ Enterprise and BlackBerry UEM. If you have not yet configured an application, refer to the documentation below and follow the steps in the referenced KB article:

Host an internal app for Android Enterprise devices in Google Play using the .apk file

Note: Testing tracks can only be configured in the Google Play Console. They are not available if you upload your APK to Google Play through the BlackBerry UEM Console.

The first piece of information you’ll need is the Google Enterprise ID for your BlackBerry UEM (also known as an Organization ID in Google documentation).  Locate this within the BlackBerry UEM Admin Console using the following steps:

1. On the left side menu expand Settings
2.  Click on External Integration
   
3. Click on Android Enterprise
4. Locate and copy your Enterprise ID as shown at the red square screenshot below:
   
   

With your Enterprise ID ready, it’s time to add it to your testing tracks in Google Play. Log into the Google Play Console and select your application. Then from the left side menu, expand Testing and click on Closed testing. This will list the test tracks you’ve previously created and is shown in the next screen shot. If you haven’t created a testing track yet, go ahead and create one and add a release before continuing onto the next steps in this article. When you have a testing track ready, click on Manage track.

After clicking Manage track you should see tabs, one of which is Testers. Click on Testers and scroll down until you see a section titled Manage organizations. This is where you add the Enterprise ID we copied from BlackBerry UEM. If this app is a private application that was already made available to your Enterprise ID, your Enterprise ID will be listed in the table. If not, click the Add organization link and add it. Check the box beside your ID and then click Save changes.

At this point the change proceeds through Google Play’s update review process before it is synchronized to BlackBerry UEM. When I was testing to create this blog post I found this process took about 24 hours. Your approval time may vary.

After the updates have been approved and synchronized with BlackBerry UEM, you should have the option to select the track you wish to assign when assigning an app to a user or user group. It will look like this:

After the assignment has been made, Google Play Work will take care of requesting the appropriate app binary files from Google Play and install on users' devices.