Distributing iOS Developer Enterprise Program Applications

Distributing iOS Developer Enterprise Program Applications

The iOS Developer Enterprise Program allows you to develop proprietary, in-house iOS applications that you can distribute to your employees. You distribute your applications outside the App Store.

If you are not a member of the iOS Developer Enterprise Program, go to iOS Developer Enterprise Program to join.

Developing iOS Developer Enterprise Program Applications

The workflow for developing iOS Developer Enterprise Program applications is similar to the workflow used by any large company that develops multiple applications for the store. During development, let Xcode manage your assets for you and use Member Center only as needed. Xcode will create your App ID and configure your project correctly to use the app services you enable.

Build Your Team (Team Agent)

If you are the team agent (the person who joins the iOS Developer Enterprise Program), build your team first by inviting team members and assigning roles. Assign the team admin role to people who help you manage your team. Assign the team member role to persons who develop your application but don’t have permission to distribute it. The team agent and team admins share the responsibility of creating team provisioning profiles, approving development certificates, and registering iOS devices for team members. The tasks a team agent can perform are a superset of the tasks that a team admin can perform. Initially, the team agent is the only team member. To invite others, read Inviting Team Members and Assigning Roles.

To learn how to manage your team, read Managing Your Team.

Important: You have to be a Registered Apple Developer to join a team. If you invite someone who is not a Registered Apple Developer, that person can register when he or she accepts the invitation.

Create Shared Team Provisioning Profiles (Team Admin)

If you are a team admin, perform these steps to enable your development team:

1. Create a team provisioning profile and enable capabilities.Follow the same steps as an individual developer to create a team provisioning profile and enable capabilities, described in Configuring Your Xcode Project for Distribution and Adding Capabilities. Xcode automatically creates an appropriate App ID and provisioning profile for you. If you want to use APNs, read Configuring Push Notifications for additional steps.
   Alternatively, use Member Center to create App IDs and provisioning profiles, described in Maintaining Identifiers, Devices, and Profiles.
2. Approve team member development certificates.Team members must have a development certificate to run an application on an iOS device and use app services. Use Member Center to approve these requests, described in Approving Development Certificates.
3. Register test devices.Team members can’t run an application on an iOS device that is not registered. Xcode automatically registers the devices used by the team agent and team admins. However, you must register team member devices as needed, described in Registering Team Member Devices.
4. Refresh team provisioning profiles as needed.After you approve development certificates or register iOS devices, refresh provisioning profiles, described in Refreshing Provisioning Profiles in Xcode. This adds any missing development certificates and registered devices to team provisioning profiles.
   Important: Each team member should have his or her own Apple ID and development certificate. Don’t share signing identities between team members.
   
   
   

Team admins can also remove team members as needed. If you use contractors to develop your applications, invite them to join your team and assign them the team member role. When their contract ends, remove them from your team, described in Removing Team Members.

Begin Development (Team Member)

If you are a team member, perform these steps to get started:

1. When you receive an email invitation, follow the link in the email to join the team.
2. In Xcode, add your Apple ID to the Accounts preferences, described in Adding Your Apple ID Account in Xcode.
3. If necessary, assign your project to a team, described in Assigning the Xcode Project to a Team.
4. Request your development certificate, described in Requesting Signing Identities.
5. If you also want to run an application on an iOS device, locate the device ID, described in Locating Device IDs Using Xcode, and send it to a team admin.
6. After your development certificate is approved, refresh provisioning profiles to download the certificate and new team provisioning profile, described in Refreshing Provisioning Profiles in Xcode.

Testing iOS Developer Enterprise Program Applications

You use an ad hoc provisioning profile, described in Distributing Your Beta App Using Ad Hoc Provisioning, to export an iOS Developer Enterprise Program application from Xcode for beta testing. Only the team agent and team admins can create an ad hoc provisioning profile for distribution. After you export your application, consider using the Xcode service to distribute it to testers and other team members. See Xcode Server and Continuous Integration Guide for more information about using the Xcode service.

Important: As a member of the iOS Developer Enterprise Program, you don’t have an iTunes Connect account or the ability to distribute your application for beta testing using iTunes Connect.

Requesting Additional Enterprise Distribution Certificates

As a member of the iOS Developer Enterprise Program, you are allowed to request multiple distribution certificates.

To request another distribution certificate

1. In Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles, select Certificates.
2. Click the Add button (+) in the upper-right corner.
3. Under Production, select “In-House and Ad Hoc” and click Continue.
4. Follow the instructions to create a certificate signing request (CSR) using Keychain Access, and click Continue.
5. Click Choose File.
6. Select a CSR file (with a .certSigningRequest extension), and click Choose.
7. Click Generate.
8. Click Download. The certificate file appears in your Downloads folder.

To install the certificate in your keychain, double-click the downloaded certificate file (with a .cer extension). The distribution certificate appears in the My Certificates category in Keychain Access.

Managing Expiring Certificates and Provisioning Profiles

You are responsible for managing your team’s certificates and provisioning profiles. iOS Developer Enterprise Program certificates expire after three years and provisioning profiles expire after one year.

Before a distribution certificate expires, request an additional distribution certificate, described in Requesting Additional Enterprise Distribution Certificates. You cannot renew an expired certificate. Instead, replace the expired certificate with the new certificate, described in Replacing Expired Certificates.

If a distribution provisioning profile expires, verify that you have a valid distribution certificate and renew the provisioning profile, described in Renewing Expired Provisioning Profiles.

Xcode manages your development certificates and team provisioning profiles for you.

Distributing Your Application In-House

To export your application for distribution to your employees and outside the store:

1. Archive your application.
2. Export the archive as an iOS App file (a file with a .ipa filename extension).
3. Distribute the iOS App file using MDM.

Creating an Archive

Create an archive of your application regardless of the type of distribution method you select. Xcode archives allow you to build your application and store it, along with critical debugging information, in a bundle that’s managed by Xcode.

Important: Save the archive for every version of an application you distribute. You need the debugging information stored in the archive to decipher crash reports later.

To create an archive

1. In the Xcode project editor, choose iOS Device or your device name from the Scheme toolbar menu.You can’t create an archive of a simulator build. If an iOS device is connected to your Mac, the device name appears in the Scheme toolbar menu. When you disconnect the iOS device, the menu item changes to iOS Device.
2. Choose Product > Archive.The Archives organizer appears and displays the new archive.

Xcode runs preliminary validation tests on the archive and may display a validate warning in the project editor. For example, if you don’t set required application icons, as described in Setting Individual App Icon Files, an Info.plist warning message appears. If you see this warning, fix the issue and create the archive again.

Creating an iOS App File

You create an iOS App file so that users can install your application on their device. You generate an iOS App file (a file with a .ipa filename extension) from the archive. Xcode automatically creates the necessary distribution certificates and provisioning profiles for you when you export the application.

To create an iOS App file for distribution

1. In the Archives organizer, select the archive.
2. Click the Export button.
3. Select “Save for Enterprise Deployment,” and click Next.
4. In the dialog that appears, choose a team from the pop-up menu, and click Choose.If necessary, Xcode creates a distribution certificate, provisioning profile, and explicit App ID for you. (You can not distribute an enterprise app using a wildcard App ID.) The name of the distribution provisioning profile begins with the text XC: followed by the App ID. If you are using a wildcard App ID, the name of the distribution provisioning profile is XC:*.
   
5. In the dialog that appears, review the application, its entitlements, and provisioning profile, and click Export.
6. Enter a filename and location for the iOS App file, and click Export.The file has an .ipa extension.

Learn More About Server Tools

Take advantage of Xcode server tools that support large software development teams.

To learn about	Read
Continuous integration Use Xcode service running on OS X Server to automate building, analyzing, testing, and archiving your application.	Xcode Server and Continuous Integration Guide
Automated testing Set up tests that can be run by Xcode service.	Testing with Xcode
Host source control repositories on servers Use Xcode service to connect to remote repositories.	Xcode Server and Continuous Integration Guide Source Control Management Help

Recap

In this chapter, you learned a variation of the development and distribution steps for iOS Developer Enterprise Program members. You learned how to build your team, create shared team assets, export your app for testing, and later, export your app for distribution outside the App Store.