Implementation of Firebase App Distribution in Android Development
By: Nwokocha Wisdom Maduabuchi
Tags: Firebase, Android, Firebase App Distribution, Android App Development, AndroidDev

firebase.google.com

Firebase App Distribution makes distributing your apps to trusted testers painless. By getting your apps onto testers’ devices quickly, you can get feedback early and often. And if you use Crashlytics in your apps, you’ll automatically get stability metrics for all your builds, so you know when you’re ready to ship.

Firebase App Distribution is a beta release. This means that the functionality might change in backward-incompatible ways. A beta release is not subject to any SLA or deprecation policy and may receive limited or no support.

Get Started

In this article, you will learn how to distribute your Android app to users/testers using Firebase App Distribution.

From the IOS background, they have been using test flight to distribute their apps to testers, it has really made it easy to test an IOS app and distribute it.

All Thanks to the Firebase Team to add this feature to Firebase, it's now easy to distribute Android apps to tester securely.

Set Up Firebase App Distribution

Step 1: go to https://console.firebase.google.com/

Sign in to your dashboard and click App Distribution

Click the check box to accept the Firebase Crashlytics and App Distribution Terms of Service.

App Distribution only works with a Signed APK

Then Click Get started

Step 2: Drag an Apk or browse on your computer

in the Release Tab, you can drag an APK file to begin the upload process or you browse your PC to locate the saved location of you Signed APK.

In the Invite links Tab, you will be able to create an invite link for your tester.

In the Tester & Groups Tab, you will be able to create a group for each tester, see the list of testers in each group, and delete testers.

Step 3: Navigate to Tester & Groups Tab

Create a group for your app testers, so click on “ Add group”

give your group a name and proceed

The App Tester group is empty because it has no tester in it.

Step 4: Navigate to Invite Links Tab

Click on “ New invite link”

When you click on “New invite link” it will open this dialog box having your package name, a section to choose your tester group, and add restriction to the email domain.

Click on “ Create Link” it will generate a dedicated link for your tester, you can now copy and share with your testers.

invite link is created and ready for use

when you try the links in your browser you will see the below screen

Step 5: Upload a Signed APK

Firstly, Click on “ Add testers or group ” to select the tester group you have created.

At this point, you will have to refresh your browser so that the tester email you sent will reflect.

Then click on the “ Next” button to proceed to add release note.

Click the “ Distribute to 1 tester”, the reason for having one tester is because only one tester has applied to test the project

It has been sent to only one tester, the tester has not accepted it at the moment neither has he downloaded the app.

An invite email will be sent to the developer to accept and download for testing.

Step 6: Check your email address for an invite

Click on the “ Get setup” button

if you open it with your PC you will get the following message below

Open it with your mobile device and continue the setup process.

Check Chapter two of this tutorial to see the complete setup process

follow the below link

https://medium.com/@wise4rmgodadmob/implementation-of-firebase-app-distribution-in-android-development-part-2-bd8bf689ddb9