Preparing to Publish a Custom Branded Social27 App

Once you've decided to publish a custom-branded Social27 Event App, there are a few additional steps you'll need to take before it can go live in the App Store and Google Play Store.

NOTE: If you're interested in publishing a custom branded app with Social27, contact your Success Manager for more information. The development of this app will come with some extra cost.

1 Get developer accounts. Begin by registering your organization for iOS and Android Developer accounts. This process can take up to four weeks, so we recommend getting started as soon as possible to avoid any delays to your app build timeline.

Want to develop an in-house app that's not hosted in public app stores? You'll need to register for an Enterprise Developer account instead.

NOTE: If you think your organization may already have Developer accounts, check with your IT Department before applying to save time and avoid unnecessary rejection.

2 Add Social27 to your developer accounts. Next, you'll need to grant us access to your Apple Developer account and Google Developer Console. After you confirm that your organization has successfully opened both developer accounts, your Release Manager will share the instructions via email. This gives us the permissions we need to submit the app on your behalf.

Let your Success Consultant know as soon as you've sent the invitation for both accounts. They must be accepted within 24 hours, otherwise, they will expire.

3 Create your event. Your app must have at least one upcoming event in it before it can be submitted to Apple and Google. This is how they verify that your app is legitimate. Follow these steps to create your event.

While you can still make changes to your event's content (like your sessions and speakers) later, you'll need to provide some App level graphics and information before submission. We'll take screenshots of your event for the app listing, so it should reflect the finished masterpiece as closely as possible.

4 Review your work. You'll need to review a few items to ensure your app is ready to submit to Apple and Google and avoid unnecessary rejection. Do so by checking:

• Event Settings - Review and confirm your Event settings.
• Event Content - About 80% of your event content (like your sessions, speakers, exhibitors, attendees, and pages) must be loaded before you can submit. This ensures your event looks as complete as possible, which makes Apple and Google more likely to give your app their stamp of approval. Double-check there is no mention of Apple or Google products anywhere in the content you've added.
• Event Links - Remove any links within your event that direct attendees to a payment or donations page. Including links to a purchasing mechanism will lead to an app rejection, since they go against Apple and Google's policies.

5 Gather the required app information and graphics. We will need a lot of information about your organization and app during the app submission process. Some of it is required to display in the App Store and Play Store, so it's important to be accurate. We'll be collecting all of this through a survey where you'll be asked for the following:

Organization Details

• The name of the CSM from Social27 working with you.
• A point of contact's name, phone number, email address, and department.
• Your organization's official name.
• The city, state, and country where your organization's headquarters is located.
• Your organization's primary website - This will be listed as the Support URL in both stores.
• The organizational unit - This is the department or team responsible for the app, such as IT or Marketing.
• A link to your organization's privacy policy.
• The name you want to appear as the Copyright or Seller Name in both stores - This will be listed as the app's Developer and is ideally the same name registered with your developer accounts.

App Details

• App Name - Must be 12 characters or less. Since your app can host multiple events, keep its name organization specific. For example, an app name like "Social27 Events" works better than an event-specific app name like "Social27 Annual Conference." This also saves you time by ensuring you won't need to update the app name for every new event.
• App Store Description - Your description is where you'll give attendees a brief explanation of why they should download your app. A minimum of three complete sentences is required. Use lists and short paragraphs to make your description easy to scan. Make sure there is no mention of Apple or Google products.
• App Store Keywords - Avoid anything too specific ("Future Technologies Conference 2022") and too broad ("technology"). Instead, consider phrases attendees might use when searching for your app, and separate each keyword with a comma. There's no need to include your app name since it already acts like a keyword. The character limit is 100 for the iOS App Store. Google Play Store does not allow keywords.

App Graphics

Make sure these files are PNGs but avoid transparent backgrounds. They will appear with a black background in the app. Keeping to the dimensions listed below will enhance the image quality across different devices, ensuring no graphic looks pixelated, squashed, or stretched out.

• Android Icon - 192 x 192 pixels
• iOS Icon - 180 x 180 pixels
• App Splash Screen - 1600 x 2560 pixels. Design your splash screen ​​with a 290 pixel safety margin on both sides of the graphic and 50 pixels from the top. Keep important content and branding inside the safety margins so nothing gets cut off on different screen sizes.
• App Store Icon - 1024 x 1024 pixels. A large version of the icon that appears in the App Store listing for your iOS app. It's best to keep it similar to your iOS Icon, but feel free to add a bit more texture if you'd like.
• Android Feature Graphic - 1024 x 500 pixels. This is the graphic that appears in the Google Play Store listing for your Android app.

App Theming

• Header Color - This is the main color of your custom app. You'll need to provide the HEX value for your desired color.
• Action Color - This color shows attendees that something is interactive. Since it's an accent, choose a vibrant color and avoid light colors like white, light grey, and yellow. You'll need to provide the HEX value for your desired color.

6 Share your app submission details. After you've collected all the required details and graphics, fill out the Social27 App Info & Collection survey provided by your Success Manager to ensure they get the information.

We'll save your responses so we have everything we need for any future app resubmissions.

NOTE: Make sure your app details and graphics are finalized before filling out the survey. Any changes to the info shared on the survey will require an app resubmission.

7 Let us know you're ready to submit. Before we can get started on your app submission, we need your written permission to do so. Once you've completed all of the above steps, send an email to your Success Manager letting them know you're ready to move forward.

We'll confirm your request and be in touch to let you know when your app is live in stores. You can continue to make updates to your event during this time, if needed.

NOTE: Apple and Google can take up to two weeks to review and approve your app.

8 Assign your event to your custom app. Your event will be assigned to the Social27 Events app by default. To move it to your custom app, let your Success consultant know.