Submitting an App Under Your Developer Account

While most of our customers prefer to have their branded app submission managed by Guidebook, clients sometimes ask if they can manage their own submissions. While we do allow a self-service option, it’s generally easier to add Guidebook to your developer account team—that way, we are able to manage all of the necessary app updates and certificate renewals when they expire. Regardless of whether you choose to proceed with a self-service or full-service app submission, you must have a current, active Apple Developer membership.

Full-Service App Submission

If you would like to add Guidebook to your developer account so that we can manage the app submission process for you, please reach out to our support team. We will require either Admin or App Manager (with developer resources) access to process a submission on your behalf.

Allowing us the ability to submit the application under your account allows us to update your application and create the necessary credentials to build and submit the app, in addition, to push notifications. You can add this user to your account as an Admin or by following the Setting Up an App Store Connect User section.

Please read through our article on Developer Accounts before getting started: Creating an Apple Developer Account.

Self-Service Considerations

Should your organization wish to submit your app to stores directly, please ensure that your IT department is familiar and comfortable with this process. We provide directions they will need to follow to re-sign your app before submitting to stores but we are unable to provide support.

If someone else in your organization is submitting your app, make sure they have all of the app metadata they’ll need. 

You will be asked to enter the following information via your Developer Account when you submit your app for the first time if Guidebook is not managing this process on your behalf.

If your app is being re-submitted to implement changes to any of these aspects, you will need to make your colleagues aware as any alterations made to these in your App Dashboard in Builder will not reflect in your app automatically.

• App Name - This information will have been entered in Builder under App Management > App full name.
• Privacy Policy URL - https://www.guidebook.com/privacy
• Primary Language - If localized app information isn’t available in an App Store territory, the information from your primary language will be used instead.
• Category - The category that best describes this app.
• App Previews and Screenshots - Screenshots must be in the JPG or PNG format, and in the RGB color space. You can create screenshots using the dimensions below following the Apple specifications found on this page or let a Guidebook team member know if you would like new screenshots shared with you and of which guide.
• Promotional Text - Promotional text lets you inform your App Store visitors of any current app features without requiring an updated submission. This text appears above your description on the App Store. This field is optional.
• Keywords - One or more keywords that describe your app. Keywords make App Store search results more accurate. This information will have been entered in Builder under App Management > Keywords.
• Description - A description of your app, detailing features and functionality. It will also be used for your Apple Watch app.
  This information will have been entered in Builder under App Management > Description
• Version info - What's New in this version? Let the Guidebook team member know if you would like further details to provide here if the difference is not content-related.
• Support URL - https://www.support.guidebook.com/
• Marketing URL - https://www.guidebook.com/
• App Store Icon - A single 1024 x 1024 px PNG master icon, submitted with no transparency and no rounded corners (Apple applies the rounded "squircle" mask automatically). Modern versions of Xcode generate all smaller required sizes automatically from this master icon via the asset catalog.
  This information will have been entered in Builder under App Management > App Images > App Icon.
• Rating - Age 4+, Age 18+ , etc
• App Review Information - If your guide is public, this field is not required. If your guide is passphrase protected, provide this information. If your guide is invite-only, the Guidebook team will provide you with this information.
  We would also recommend including the following: Please be sure to check out from the guide and delete any testing notes/comments in the guide.
• Notes - Additional information about your app that can help during the review process. Include information that may be needed to test your app, such as app-specific settings and log-ins. Please note test credentials are required if your app contains no public guides.

Please note, it can take up to two weeks for an app (or app update) to appear in stores after you submit your app, however, they will often go live within 3/4 business days.

Self Service App Submission

If you are submitting your branded application under your own developer account or through your own distribution system, you will need to sign the application files with your distribution certificates and create the certificates needed to allow us to send push notifications to your application. The iOS and Android applications have separate re-signing processes which are outlined below.

While there are typically developer resources available to handle the process of re-signing an application, this is not something that a mobile app developer will frequently run into and the information needed to accomplish this task is sparse throughout the web. The purpose of this document is to condense this information and walk a developer through the process of re-signing their Guidebook-built application file. It will walk you through how to re-sign the application for both Android and iOS including both the resources needed and steps you need to take from when you receive your branded application built by Guidebook to end up with the re-signed application file. 

Re-signing an iOS App

Requirements

1. A Mac running a current, supported version of macOS with the latest stable version of Xcode installed. Apple's submission tooling generally requires the most recent Xcode release; check Apple's Minimum Requirements page before starting.
2. An active Apple Developer membership, and access to your team’s App Store Connect portal.
3. Your team’s Application Signing Certificate installed in your keychain. See Apple's Certificates overview for guidance.
4. An Apple Certificate Signing Request (CSR) file, used to create your app’s push certificate. See Apple's Create a Certificate Signing Request documentation.
5. A custom Entitlements.plist file (instructions provided below). This is required for login links (universal links) to work after re-signing.

Instructions

Create Your App ID

Each app that you submit has to be signed with a provisioning profile that originates from your account to verify the authenticity of the application being submitted. Because our apps utilize push notifications, you will need to create an explicit app ID. Instructions on how to do this can be found on this page. Note that this requires your apps bundle Id which can be shared with you by contacting a Guidebook team member. This application identifier also needs to be configured with the following capabilities enabled for the production environment:

• Associated Domains
• Push Notifications
• Background Audio - only required if your app includes a Tours guide (audio tour functionality). If you are unsure whether this applies to your app, please confirm with your Guidebook support before creating the App ID.

You can input whatever name you would like for the application ID. However, please be sure to share your application ID with Guidebook so we can ensure all features function properly (i.e. push notifications).

When creating your app listing in App Store Connect for the first time, you will also need to complete the App Privacy information required by Apple. Please reach out to a Guidebook support who can share guidance on the data types Guidebook collects so this can be completed accurately.

Create Your Provisioning Profile

Once your app ID has been created, you’ll need to create a provisioning profile for that app ID (which is used to verify that you are uploading the application file to App Store Connect).

Distributing on App Store Connect:

If you’re going to distribute the app on App Store Connect, refer to the documentation for how to Create an App Store provisioning profile.

Distributing on your private app store / MDM system:

If you will be uploading your app to your own private app store or Mobile Device Management solution, please check the requirements for your system to create the provisioning profile needed for that solution.

Create Push Certificate

Our applications utilize push messaging. In order for our system to send push messages through the app, you will need to create a push certificate for the app and send it to the Guidebook team.

Navigate to the app ID that you created in the Apple Developer Portal. Click edit, and under Push Notifications select Create Certificate under Production SSL Certificate. Upload your Apple Certificate Signing Request (CSR) file and download your certificate once it’s been created. Once you have this certificate, install it into Keychain Access by double-clicking the .cer file that you just downloaded from the Apple Developer Portal. Then, locate the certificate file in Keychain Access, right-click the file, select Export, enter in a password to use, select the .p12 file format, and click Save. Please send this .p12 file (and the password that you saved it with) to your point of contact at Guidebook so that we can register it in our system and enable push notifications for your app.

Re-Sign Your App

Why a custom entitlements file is required

When Guidebook builds your app, the IPA is re-signed with our wildcard provisioning profile, which strips all entitlements from the binary. You receive a clean IPA with no Guidebook-specific data — but also no entitlements. When you re-sign with your own distribution certificate and provisioning profile, two key capabilities behave differently:

• Push notifications work automatically. The aps-environment value is derived from your provisioning profile during code signing, so push works as long as Push Notifications is enabled on your App ID.
• Login links (universal links) will not work without a custom entitlements file. Your provisioning profile only enables the Associated Domains capability — the actual domain URLs must be explicitly listed in an entitlements plist that you pass to the resign tool.

Creating your Entitlements.plist

You have two options:

• Option A — Create manually: copy the XML template below into a file named Entitlements.plist and replace the placeholders.
• Option B — Use Xcode: create a throwaway project, enable the Associated Domains and Push Notifications capabilities, copy the generated .entitlements file, then add the Guidebook-specific applinks: URLs manually.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN"
  "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>get-task-allow</key>
    <false/>

    <key>application-identifier</key>
    <string>YOUR_TEAM_ID.YOUR_BUNDLE_ID</string>

    <key>com.apple.developer.team-identifier</key>
    <string>YOUR_TEAM_ID</string>

    <key>aps-environment</key>
    <string>production</string>

    <key>com.apple.developer.associated-domains</key>
    <array>
        <string>applinks:YOUR_APP_ID.applinks.guidebook.com</string>
        <string>webcredentials:guidebook.com</string>
        <string>webcredentials:builder.guidebook.com</string>
    </array>
</dict>
</plist>

Placeholders:

• YOUR_TEAM_ID — your 10-character Apple Team ID. 
  Note for older Apple Developer accounts (pre-2011): the App ID Prefix may differ from the Team ID. If so, use the App ID Prefix for application-identifier and the actual Team ID for com.apple.developer.team-identifier. The App ID Prefix can be found in the Apple Developer Portal under Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles.
• YOUR_BUNDLE_ID — your app's bundle identifier (e.g. com.example.myapp).
• YOUR_APP_ID — your Guidebook app object ID. Please contact Guidebook support if you don't have this.

Running the resign

If you have a resigning tool that you are comfortable with, please feel free to use that to resign your app — just make sure you pass your Entitlements.plist file to it. If you do not, we recommend using the re-signing command available through Fastlane, with the -e flag to apply your entitlements:

fastlane sigh resign app.ipa \
  -i "your distribution certificate" \
  -p path/to/profile.mobileprovision \
  -e path/to/Entitlements.plist

Verify Your Re-Signed IPA

We strongly recommend verifying your re-signed IPA before uploading to App Store Connect. This catches the most common failure modes (missing entitlements, wrong profile type) before you waste an upload cycle.

unzip -o app.ipa -d /tmp/resigned
codesign -d --entitlements :- /tmp/resigned/Payload/*.app

security cms -D -i /tmp/resigned/Payload/*.app/embedded.mobileprovision | plutil -p -

Upload Your App

If you’re going to submit the application to App Store Connect, do the following:

1. Follow the steps in this article to create your app listing in App Store Connect (if you have not already).
2. Once your listing is created, upload your signed IPA using one of Apple's supported methods:
   • Xcode Organizer (Window > Organizer in Xcode) — the most common option for developers already working in Xcode.
   • Transporter — a free Mac App Store app dedicated to uploading binaries.
   • Command line via xcrun altool --upload-app — useful in CI/CD pipelines.

If you’re using a private store or MDM solution, follow the steps to distribute your app as recommended by your solution provider.

Once the app has been signed, you’ll find many helpful resources provided by Apple on their Developer site. If you would like to complete the app submission process on your end, the following articles are a good starting point:

• Submitting iOS Apps to the App Store
• Making the Most of Your Product Page
• Choosing a Category

Re-signing an Android App

The SHA-1 and SHA-256 fingerprints associated with your keystore must be provided to Guidebook support before we generate your application file. These signatures are required for Google Maps, App Links, and login links to function correctly in your live app. If they are not provided in advance, these features will need to be reconfigured after submission, which may require a re-build and re-submission.

You can find your SHA-1 and SHA-256 fingerprints in the Google Play Console under Test and Release > Setup > App Signing.

When creating your app listing in Google Console for the first time, you will also need to complete the Data Safety Form declaring how user data is collected, used, and shared. Please reach out to a Guidebook support who can share the standard responses for the form so this can be completed accurately.

Requirements

• A keystore to sign your app with. If you do not already have a keystore file for signing your Android applications, see the section “Build and sign your app from command line” in the Android Developers documentation.
• Android SDK Build Tools revision 33.0.1 or higher (which includes the apksigner tool used below).

Instructions

Re-Sign Your App

Run the following command to re-sign your application file:

apksigner sign --ks release.jks com.myguidebookapp.android.apk

where “release.jks” is your keystore file and “com.myguidebookapp.android.apk” is your Guidebook application file. This will re-sign your application that you can then upload to the Google Play store or the distribution source of your choice.