We receive a good deal of feedback from the Windows Phone community and one request remains consistent – reduce the time required to certify my app. Over the last several months we have been redesigning our certification workflow to substantially reduce turn-around time while maintaining app quality.
Over the past few weeks we have been rolling out the new streamlined workflow as we prepare for the next stage of growth and scale. While still in the early in the roll out, we’ve seen turn-around time of less than one day and in some cases just one hour.
With these changes, you’ll also notice an improved approach to delivering certification results. In place of the standard PDF attachment, developers will now receive an email notification indicating testing is complete with App Review results available on their Dev Center Dashboard – keeping all important app information in one easy to access location. We’ve also updated the format to make the results easier to read and included your app icon for instant identification, to help those of you who have multiple apps. While you’re in the Dashboard checking your App Review results, you’ll also want to take a look at the enhanced app download and in-app purchase file exports. Both now contain additional data elements (app version, language, age group, gender, phone manufacturer and mobile operator) to give you added user insights.
Please note it will take several more weeks to roll out the changes and get the entire Windows Phone community onto the new workflow. Thank you for your patience while we make the transition.
For those of you who also develop for Windows, we recently made improvements to the Windows app submission process to give you added control including the ability to choose the release date and time for your app, as well as change that release date while your app is in certification. We also added the ability to remove and restore your app’s listing, which is handy if you need to evaluate a concern or fix a bug. Over time we will continue to make improvements and reduce certification times for Windows developers as well.
Please continue to provide feedback, we’re listening.