We have a custom B2B app that the customer would like now to distribute privately to their contractors in addition to their current EMM process for internal staff. As we understand there are no options provided through the Play Console for private apps in a production environment relying on sideloading only and all it's issues. An alternative suggested by many on SO is to run a closed testing track by invite. We accept it is a poor workaround but at this stage we are not aware of other options.
The organisation deploying the app has a G Workspace using their own domain and have created a G Group for contractors with "Allow members outside your organisation" enabled. The idea being that the G Group can be added to the closed track testers in the Play Console (using the G Group option) and the organisation can then add their contractors to the group as needed.
The G Group is running fine and members can see the group and post as needed. The G Group email however is not recognised by the Play Console even after 24 hours (see example below). The group email uses the organisation's domain (eg group_email@org_domain.com) as required in the group set up from the admin console rather than the standard group_email@googlegroups.com. Testing with other public group emails work fine.
We have submitted requests unsuccessfully to Google over the past month about options here so are wondering now if the above scenario is in fact technically valid and if there is something we are missing to get this going?
