Microsoft 365 Community Community Demos, 2 Jan 2023

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From YouTube: Top 5 AppSource Validation Errors hit by Office Add-ins' submissions

Description

Wouldn’t it be nice if your add-in sailed through the Microsoft AppSource certification process? In this 10-minute Developer-focused demo, Elizabeth Samuel highlights the top 5 certification show-stoppers - undisclosed charges, unclear first run experience, missing links for sign in/sign out/sign up, mismatch between provider and publisher name, inadequate testing instructions. See the key marketplace certification policies related to Office Add-ins validations in this session.

This PnP Community demo is taken from the Office Add-ins community call – December 2022, recorded on December 14, 2022.

Demo Presenter
• Elizabeth Samuel, Senior Technical Writer (Microsoft)

Supporting documents
• Article - Top 5 AppSource validation errors for Office Add-ins submissions | https://devblogs.microsoft.com/microsoft365dev/top-5-appsource-validation-errors-for-office-add-ins-submissions/
• Policy - Commercial marketplace certification policies - 1100.1 General content | https://learn.microsoft.com/legal/marketplace/certification-policies#11001-general-content
• Policy - Commercial marketplace certification policies - 1100.5 Customer control | https://learn.microsoft.com/legal/marketplace/certification-policies#11005-customer-control
• Documentation - ProviderName element | https://learn.microsoft.com/javascript/api/manifest/providername?view=common-js
• Policy - Commercial marketplace certification policies - 1120.3 Functionality | https://learn.microsoft.com/legal/marketplace/certification-policies#11203-functionality
• Policy - Commercial marketplace certification policies - 100.14 Testability | https://learn.microsoft.com/legal/marketplace/certification-policies#10014-testability
• Policy - Commercial marketplace certification policies - 100 General | https://learn.microsoft.com/legal/marketplace/certification-policies#100-general
• Policy - Commercial marketplace certification policies - 1100 Microsoft 365 | https://learn.microsoft.com/legal/marketplace/certification-policies#1100-microsoft-365
• Policy - Commercial marketplace certification policies - 1120 Office Add-ins: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook | https://learn.microsoft.com/legal/marketplace/certification-policies#1120-office-add-ins-word-excel-powerpoint-and-outlook
• Policies - Commercial marketplace certification policies | https://learn.microsoft.com/legal/marketplace/certification-policies
• Documentation - Am I ready to publish? | https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/marketplace/checklist
• Documentation - Store step-by-step submission guide | https://learn.microsoft.com/azure/marketplace/add-in-submission-guide

Learn more
• Microsoft 365 Unified Sample gallery - https://aka.ms/m365/samples
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community in YouTube - https://aka.ms/m365/videos
• Microsoft 365 Platform Community - http://aka.ms/m365/community

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Appsource validation errors that office add-ins canvas when they're submitted, so we thought that this would be really helpful, we're doing a blog post on this, and we share that link out, probably with the um when we update the page that includes the information about this community call we'll make sure that the blog link is there too so I, don't know how many of you actually submit to appsource, um and so we hope that this is really useful information to the community. The five top errors are usually these. Five additional charges are not disclosed to users.

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The first run experiences on clear. Sometimes we've seen things where it just says sign in it doesn't say what the add-in does. Anything like that there are no links to sign in sign out or sign up. The provider name doesn't match the publisher name and the testing instructions are missing or inadequate for the reviewers to go through. So let's dig into them a little more first up, additional charges are not disclosed. Some things you need to ask yourself: does your add-in have any dependencies on additional accounts and services, and particularly do they require purchase?

A

So if the user needs to pay for any of these accounts, any of these Services, um the add-ins are usually free, but if they're connected to SAS offers or anything like that that require them to spend money, you definitely need to let them know. Next up. We have that the first one experiences on clear so to continue from the first point, um if one of the key things we have in the policies is that the adder needs to have a clear value proposition, why should I get this added? What's really so awesome about it?

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What are the benefits? So you want to make sure and have that description like even on the add-in itself in the start screen, so that they have installed the add-in, and maybe it was a while ago. Why do I have this add-in? What's the point, and you want to make sure that you have at least a couple lines that explain this is what the add-in is for. This is what it can do for you, and that should be on the start screen of the add-in.

A

uh It's the first round experience seamless so first time they come in they're not familiar with it, make sure that they can go through it's seamless, it makes sense and they can do what they're trying to do um if it needs to have sign up or sign in there's. Another thing um error, that's related to that too. I'll go into a bit more about that, but if they need to sign up for some with some account, you want to make sure that that's clear to them in the UI before they sign up for something.

A

If, however, it's targeting Enterprise like larger organizations, then you don't necessarily need to explain about a value proposition, because your assumption is that the company installed the true Central centralized deployment or something like that. But you still want to make sure that there is information on there, a link to a site or an email contact, so that the users in that Enterprise can contact you and say: hey I, want to know more about this or send them to a link so that they can read for themselves.

A

Next up, no links for sign and sign Auto sign up. So it's like hey, there's a sign-in screen. It doesn't say what they're signing in with anything like that, um and so you want to make sure that that information is very clear on the add-in sign-in screen. If they need to sign up, um you want to make sure that all those links are really clear. They know exactly what they need to do as they go to the admin. Experience is then Easy Link to sign out once they're in those kind of things again.

A

If it's targeting Enterprises, then you don't need to have it if, if the Enterprise itself controls that, in that you know, login situation, um and so as long as the individual user doesn't need to go and figure out what accounts I need and those kind of things- and this is maybe something that uses single sign-on with the Enterprise work account. Then it's managed by the Enterprise and you don't necessarily need to have all of this information on the island itself. Okay, fourth, one is the provider name doesn't match the publisher name.

A

This one is really important, because there's a provider name element that I'm thinking a lot of you are familiar with in the Manifest itself is pretty near the top, if I remember correctly, and that basically says company, X or isvy or whatnot they're, the ones who created this add-in.

A

um So when you go in now to appsource and you're uploading your manifest, they check to make sure that the publisher, you, the publisher, account you're using to submit your add-in that the information matches. So it will be not so good if you have like Microsoft. Let's use Microsoft and I said as an example um that says I'm using a Microsoft Publisher account.

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But my add-in says it's: the provider is Google, ah it seems a little iffy to me, and so we check for that kind of information to ensure that the add-in is coming from this particular publisher. So they need to match up and we want to make sure that when the person goes onto appsource and they see this is the publisher that when they actually use the add-in and look at the add-in metadata, for example, that they are in sync- and that's of course, confusion and last up. This one is the testing instructions.

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This one is really important for particularly going through the appsource validation and verification process, and so we have. The certification process means that the reviewers, especially depending on how much volume they have they really don't, have the time to come back to each person and say hey. We need this piece of information from you or we need clarification on that. So we need the test account, so we need keys or all those kind of information.

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So what you want to make sure you do is when you submit your notes for a certification, if you upload a document that includes screenshots and those kinds of things, you provide information like the test credentials, especially if they need to have an account if they need to pay for something.

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We can't have the reviewers trying to go through the purchase process and all that that kind of thing, and so what you need to do is provide those kind of credentials if they need product keys, provide those any kind of test um data so that they can successfully get through the process of using your add-in without having to pull out their own credit card, which would not be reasonable to expect. So there are some other things like.

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If it has custom functions which some of the office add-ins can support in Excel, then you want to make sure that at least one of the custom functions you're very clear about how the tester, what if the certifier needs to go through and use the custom function so that they can try all the others. You don't necessarily need to explain how all of them work, but you at least need to give an example. So they have an idea how to do the others.

A

We really suggest that if you have super complex add-in scenarios- or it would just be really helpful- to have screenshots going through the flows so that the reviewer knows what to expect. So there is an option that, instead of using the no so certification box, which gets refreshed every time you submit, um then you need to you: can you have the option to upload a PDF version of it and that actually gets kept throughout submissions?

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And so you don't need to re-upload it every time which has really helpful, especially if you end up having to resubmit a couple times and the testing instructions are comprehensive enough, that they don't need to come back to you and go back and forth with it. So Juan is on here as well. He is our key point of contact UM working on the validation flow, so I appreciate them going through and looking at the questions. I'll do so once I'm done here. So those are the top five things. We also include the term resources here.

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The key Marketplace policies that apply to office add-ins um their general policies that apply pretty much anything going on to the marketplace. Office add-ins are considered part of m265, so those policies can also apply and, of course, it often offers add-ins policies.

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We still recommend that you go through all of these certification policies because, depending on what features you're using or what you're connected to like, particularly the SAS apps, for example, then there are some things, some policies that apply to that specifically, and if your ad and it's connected in that way, you want to make sure that you read those policies and meet those requirements as well.

A

um There are also a couple of document pages that are like the checklist, the submission guide, those have like screenshots and steps to help guide you through the process. So that's basically all I had um once we had like I said once we have the blog published, we will make sure that we have that information posted with the recording of this online so that you have that information when that goes up so I think that's it for me. Thank you very much for your attention.

A

uh If you have any questions you want to mention, let me know, but I'll be checking through the chat after this thanks. Everyone.