iTunes Connect demo account in existing live database for app submittal?

Question

I'm submitting my first app through iTunes Connect. It is a social networking community so I have to provide a demo account for the submission. My app already has a live database of users as there is currently an active web version.

I'm new to this and confused as to how I should handle this. Should I be creating a demo account that will not show up in any other live user's search results? Are the testers going to be attempting to interact with other live users? I am assuming I will need to show the various functions of the app, like messaging and events. In that case should I be creating a few "demo" users for the testers to interact with?

Alternatively, should I be linking them to the development version and development database? If that's the case, then the build that I send them would only be a development build then?

I am confused on how this is supposed to work and can't seem to find any information to help?

Answer 1

In my experience, you'll need to give them the production version that will go into the store. So not the development build.

When we submit an app for approval, it seems to get installed and activated on a couple of devices, but nothing much ever happens. They barely use it, as far as we can tell. We can tell that it's installed and run. We have previously been rejected when the network connectivity wasn't working right, so we know that they do look at the app after it's installed.

I'd suggest you make them an account that looks relatively anonymous (or even "Test Account" which you real users are hardly likely to try to interact with). You could create another account and say "If you want to send a message, send it to account xxxx". We've never had them interact with our app enough to utilise the suggestions we've made.

If you have an active / inactive flag, you could think about making these accounts inactive once the app is approved, then re-activating it when you next want to submit your app.