How To Publish An Assistant App That Will Pass The Review?

After you’ve designed conversations and developed apps, you’re probably ready to share them with users. Before you make your app available to Google Assistant users, let’s see how to prepare for deployment. When you submit your app for approval, Google tests and verifies that they meet a minimal set of launch requirements before publishing them to users.

In this video and post we will focus on the top 3 pitfalls you need to avoid in order to pass the review process.

Let’s focus on the top 3 pitfalls:

1. Incomplete store listing data
2. Naming, Directory Listing, and pronunciation
3. No response and no lead

Let’s dive into each of these issues and see how you can get your apps through the review process the first time.

Incomplete store listing data

You can see in the image below what are the top ‘missing parts’:

• The Application name
• Pronunciation — Picking a name with a recognizable pronunciation is critical.
• Invocation — How the users will call your app. For example: “OK Google talk with bitcoin info”.

Please make sure that the images are in high quality and the app description is accurate. The Large banner image should be 1920 by 1080 and the Small square logo is 192 by 192.

Another important part is your privacy policy.

We frequently see example.com for the privacy policy which (of course) is not good. It must be public on the web and related to your app. If you don’t have a web site, you can create one for free with google sites or other services.

Here is one I’ve created for my assistant app “bitcoin Info”:

Btw, you can read more about this cool action over here and try it in the assistant.

Naming, Directory Listing, and pronunciation

All apps must have a unique name that will allow users to trigger the app’s functionality.
Your Directory listing must have at least one sample invocation, all of which must include your app’s name, for example “Talk to bitcoin info” and consistently triggers your app.

Few important things to remember about Names:

• One-word names are not allowed, unless the name is unique to your brand or trademark.
• An app name uniquely identifies your app, so it must distinguish itself from other apps and from features of the Assistant. You should avoid very common phrases like, thank you, good evening or OMG.
• Don’t use Generic words or phrases such as categories of products, services, or content. Travel or Sports for example. Think of i this way…If your name can describe a category of apps rather than a specific function, change it to be more specific.
  Some words and phrases are reserved and cannot be used in names including: OK, Google, volume up, game, bot, action, and app.
  For example: “Talk to bitcoin info” is a good one because it’s specific enough and “Talk to bitcoin” or “Talk to cryptocurrency” is not good because it’s describing a category and not a specific function.

You can test your name in the Actions on Google console to confirm it doesn’t use a reserved word or phrase. Also, double check that your Display and invocation name match. this doesn’t mean they match verbatim, but rather match in pronunciation. The invocation name is what is actually listened for by Assistant.

Always response and lead

Don’t leave the mic open without an audio cue or reaction.

You want to give users an easy way to move forward with the conversation and reach their goal.

Good luck!

Originally published at greenido.wordpress.com on October 5, 2017.