Google Play
How to invite the service account Kwern makes for you in Play Console, what it reads from your Android app, and the one thing it writes on approval.
What you need
A Play Console account with the right to invite users, and a product in Kwern whose Google Play surface points at the app. Google Play reads the package of that surface. Connect it during onboarding, from Finish setup, from the product's Apps page, or from Settings › Accounts, which connects every product whose Google Play app is not connected yet.
There is no key to create and nothing to paste but one id. Kwern makes a Google service account for you, with no key, and you invite it into Play Console like a colleague.
Connect it
- Copy the email — Kwern made a Google service account for you, with no key. Copy its email: it is the user you invite in Play Console.
- Invite it — In Play Console, open Users and permissions, click Invite new users and paste the email. Open Play Console
- Tick two permissions — Under Account permissions, tick Reply to reviews, and View app information and download bulk reports. Leave the access expiry date empty, then send the invitation.
- Bucket id — In Play Console, open Download reports, then Statistics, and click Copy Cloud Storage URI next to the heading. Paste it here as it is. Open Statistics reports
- Wait for Google — Asking Google Play whether Kwern is let in…
Google can take up to 48 hours to pass the invitation on. Kwern checks again every hour for 48 hours and starts reading as soon as it is let in. Nothing else to do.
One Play developer account is one connection. Invite Kwern once: each product with an app in that account connects to the same account and reads its own package only.
What Kwern reads
- Reviews, every one, synced daily, with the reply already posted if there is one. On the first sync Kwern also fills the history from Google's monthly review files, rating-only reviews included.
- Visitors and installs, day by day, from Google's bulk reports: visitors, installs, conversion by country and by traffic source, and ratings. Google publishes a day three to seven days late, so the Google Play tab of Analytics shows the latest day Google has published, and a day not published yet is missing rather than zero.
- Search terms, the ones that brought visitors to your listing, which the ASO agent's weekly briefing starts from.
The invitation reaches every app of the developer account. Kwern reads only the files named after the packages your products are bound to.
What Kwern can change
One thing, and only after you approve: a reply to a review, posted to Google Play from the service account. Google refuses a reply over 350 characters, so Kwern refuses it before it reaches you.
Kwern never writes your listing. A listing change is copied into Play Console by you and marked as done, or delivered as a pull request when the connected repository holds the listing files (fastlane/metadata/android/).
The agents that use it
The ASO agent reads through it: the reviews worth answering, the visitors and installs, and the search terms. Without the connection it still runs, on the public listing.
When it breaks
Google can take up to 48 hours to pass an invitation on. Until it does, the account reads Waiting for Google and Kwern checks again every hour. If 48 hours pass without access, the account is marked as needing attention and Reconnect reopens the steps on the invitation: check the email, the two permissions and the bucket id, then send it again.
When Google blocks a step on Kwern's side (an account it could not create, a quota reached), Kwern says so and asks you to try again later: there is nothing to fix on yours.
Deleting your Kwern account deletes the service account Kwern made for you, so no identity you invited outlives it. Remove it from Users and permissions in Play Console too if you want the invitation gone.