I'm looking for an .jar or library project that will allow users of my application to easily send feedback from inside the application about their experience.
As asked in this question, I am looking for something similar to the crash reporting tool used in Google Plus, that allows the user to get in contact with me, besides leaving bad reviews.
Some not-quite there solutions that came up in answers to other questions:
ACRA : Application Crash Report for Android (functions as a crash reporting tool)
Hockey Kit: Helps distribute betas, nothing related to send feedback to developer.
Does a library like this exist? Is there an easy way to gather user feedback from within the application?
For a full-featured user support service, you can have a look to Capptain: http://www.capptain.com/
But with ACRA you can also trigger a report programmatically. You could call the method handleException(new UserRequestedException()) when the user selects an option in your preferences screen, for example.
You would then filter your ACRA reports spreadsheet for all stacktraces containing UserRequestedException.
UserRequestedException would be a custom Exception that you would implement.
The NOTIFICATION mode can be configured to display a form containing an e-mail field and comments field. The e-mail given by the user the first time is saved in the apps preferences.
A bit late to answer your question, but you might want check out this: http://www.android-feedback.com/ . Its an in app feedback / support system. Its not live yet, but the beta stage is going to start in a few weeks. (and beta testers get bumped to the premium/paid plan once live)
Edit: Disclaimer: its my project
i think you need to use a tool like instabug it provides you a way for collecting bug reports and feedbacks about user experience and also you can talk back to them
As of this date (27th April 2018), HockeyApp can handle this issue. It enables users to send In-app Feedback to developers, which then developers can access through a Dashboard.
Check out: www.hockeyapp.net
The problem I've had with implementing HockeyApp, is that, the feedback form requires the user to add unnecessary details like name, email, etc. I can't seem to find a way to add these detail programmatically.
Related
I have created an Android app after months of hard work and when it came to publishing, Google straight away rejected it.
Google says i am using a sensitive permission PROCESS_OUTGOING_CALLS. To use this permission either my app shall be a default call handler or my core feature shall fall under the exceptions they have provided. If my core feature doesn't fall under those exceptions which it actually doesn't, then i must report a new use case. I reported new use case properly and waited for two weeks NO RESPONSE. I tried publishing my app again as exception "device automation". It got rejected again saying my app doesn't fall under this exception.
Basically what my app does is, base on phone number to which call is being made, it shows some personalize data on an overlay screen over dialer. ( Cannot tell you the complete details, i am really sorry for that). No it is not a caller id or spam detection either.
I went through Google document over and over to see if i missed something.
https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9214102?hl=en
I couldn't find any.
My time and money has been invested in this and i can't start showing it to people.
If someone came across same issue and able to resolve it please help.
And if more details required please comment i will provide.
I've encountered the similar problem with Google a while ago but with this sensitive permission.
From my experience - the chances that the use case you submitted will be approved is near zero.
There are two things you can do in this case:
either extend your app to fall under one the exception cases.
or go the path I went - change your app main purpose to be the default dialer and your current main feature would be just a minor perk. (make it extendable to add more minor features in future)
This is the easiest way to publish your app. Well frankly I see it as the only solution possible - Google is known for its strict "You are banned and I'm not gonna change my decision" policy. Youtube and Play Store have tens of thousands ban stories non of which is ended in a user beneficial way.
Hope it helps.
When developing Java apps used internally by users in the company I work for, I would have the app display a message such as "An issue occurred. Please contact the Help Desk and report it", when an issue occurs with the app that is being used.
Now that I am learning to develop mobile apps on my own, I am faced with the question of how best to handle app issues in this environment, since there really isn't a help desk.
My initial thought was to asynchronously call a service to log the error. But, remote communication may not be possible. Then, I thought to display an error alert with a number to contact or e-mail address to mail to report the issue. But, is that really best practice?
So, for mobile apps, what is the best practice for capturing issues or having users report them, so that they can be properly addressed and not have them become very frustrated with your app, especially if the root cause may be related to something that is out of your control, such as an issue with a godaddy server, which hosts a database used by the app?
Thanks in advance
For recording crashes, you could use Crashlytics, so that you can see the device log when that crash occurred and investigate the reasons to improve your app / prevent the crash from happening again in the future, or reaching out directly to the specific user (as you could record user id / email addr in Crashlytics) if you for instance see the app crashes for her/him repeatedly.
For issues/problems the app experienced (but it didn't crash), you can use things like Rollbar to record the incidents. You can put special logic in your app, especially places that are prone to failure, or whenever your app recognizes "an issue".
If you want to have a place in your app that users could search for FAQs, ask questions or provide feedback and concerns, you may want to use things like UserVoice to provide a central hub.
[Things aforementioned may not be free software.]
You can use Crashlytics and if you do not want to go for third party then you can read all of your logs from iOS SDK for your app,so you can go for it as well
or there is always solution with third party softwares
I am a newbie in Android, currently developing an app with some others. Right now the app is quite unstable and I want to add a bug report feature.
I have seen something in ios that a user press the screen with two fingers and it will pop up options to send bug report or UI report.
What I want to do in Android:
through a gesture to enable a user to send screentshot and log through email.
It will pop up a menu to ask the user which email app he would like to use and then direct the user to that certain app. (the email apps need to be detected and show in the menu.)
in the receipt it automatically plugged in my email, in the content it has the user's android version number, stuff like that, and a screenshot, and a log.
I dont want to spend money to any third-party libraries. I would like to use a free one or develop the feature on my own. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much!!!
You could make use of Instabug. It is a bug reporting SDK that you drop into your app and allows for the following:
Users can shake the phone while inside your app to report a bug.
Instabug menu will appear as the following
Interface is plain simple, suitable for non-tech users.
The bug reporting feature is free and unlimited. It is Incredibly easy to track your bugs through the product’s dashboard.
You could make use of the in-app chat feature which lets you reply back to your users within your app. (not free)
It only takes a line of code to integrate into your app.
For full disclosure, I work at Instabug. Let me know if I can help.
I would definitely use Crashlytics for that purpose, they support both Android and iOS platforms and fulfill all the needs you mentioned above. Apart from that and for the same price (it's free!), they include in the report some very valuable metadata like:
OS version
Device
Proximity sensor
Battery status
Charge in progress
Jailbreak/rooting status
Device orientation
Wi-Fi network
Running processes
etc
No need to do extra implementations, all is done!
I found different approaches to offer android app user the opportunity to share an app link with friends form within an app and also ask them to rate the app on google play. As I am a friend of doing things the standard way yet new to android I was wondering if there is a google recommended standard way to do this, to
ask the user of an app from within the app to rate it on google play
offer the opportunity to share a link to the app on google play from within the app via email, facebook etc with friends
Thanks buddies
UPDATE
As this was obviously not so clear, my question is mainly around the technical aspect of doing it. (other suggestions are of course also welcome)
UPDATE 2
Found
http://www.androidsnippets.com/prompt-engaged-users-to-rate-your-app-in-the-android-market-appirater
which is not exactly what I wanted but maybe useful for people stumbling over this thread. In its core it is what Budius suggested
There's really not an 'standard' way of doing it. It's a very delicate situation, I guess the 1st rule will be don't be rude or over-intrusive to your users.
Leave the share option always available on some menu and don't force your users to use it.
About rating, you could count the amount of times your app is used (or for how long) and based on that estimation pop a thing to give the user the option to rate it, but unless the user clicks "Remind me Later" do never show that message again.
edit:
based on the author comment:
nothing special code wise, to rate the app you just start an Action_VIEW to your app link (e.g. for my app)
startActivity(new Intent(Intent.ACTION_VIEW, Uri.parse("https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.budius.WiFiShoot")));
and for the share is the same standard share code ( http://developer.android.com/training/sharing/send.html ) just passing your app link and maybe some extra message like : "check out my awesome app!"
Many of users complain about my products, however they do it without any details. For instance they only write, that crash occur on start, however I can reproduce it, because I don't know which device was used by user.
It will be great if I could send an e-mail, to specific users and ask about details.
Is there any way to send user private message or something?
Not yet. Roman Nurik told us on Google Developers Day'2010 that it is planned, but they simply lack resources to implement all this features. Just wait.
I can advice you to add some contact info in your application to let users contact you dorectly.
No way to contact users directly. However you could use ACRA to get more info about crashes
This isn't a technical solution, but I have found that users of my apps have responded well to me just adding a note in the app description that I would really like them to e-mail me if they have any problems so that I can attempt to resolve the issue.