Purpose
The purpose of this document is to aide in compiling an IPA file for distribution to the Google App Store.

Software Requirements:

Xcode
Visual Studio
Xamarin.android extension
If you plan to create the build with Visual Studio for Windows then you will need to configure a mac build server which is beyond the scope of this document.

Create Build
Set build configuration to “Release”. This compiles the IPA file to use our release configs and distribution on physical devices.

Right click the mobile.Droid Visual Studio project and choose “Archive for Publishing”.

Depending on the speed of your machine this step could take a few minutes.

Once the archive bundle is completed you will be presented with the “View Archives” screen. Also found in the Build > View Archives menu option.

Note the version and code columns. The app store will only accept a version and code greater than what is already in the app store. If you need to increment these values, you do so in the AndroidManifest.xml file found in the Properties file. You will need to create another archive to proceed further.

Click the “Sign and Distribute” button found in the bottom left corner of the “View Archives” screen.

Choose the “Ad Hoc” distribution channel and click the “Next” button.

Next you need to select the appropriate Keystore “vantage.keystore in our case”. import the Keystore from dept/It/Development/PlaystoreKeyStore/vantage-key. If you already added the Key store, select ‘Use Existing Key’ and click Next.

Select Publish then select the name and the location for the Apk.

After we created the Apk we need to navigate to the play.google.com. Select ‘Release management’ then ‘App releases’.

click ‘Manage’

then click ‘Release To Beta’

click ‘MANAGE’

First click Browse files and add the Apk that we already created or Click Add from Library if you are going to roll back. You need to change the release name and the description for the release.

Click Review and check if there is warning message. Google servers will perform some more checks. If successful you will be presented with a Success message. If there are any issues, then they will need to be addressed by redoing all of the previous steps until everything is fine Upload build to App Store.

You will now want to go to the Connect to the Play Store and download the new version of the android app.