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Developing a Windows Store app is not just about design, coding, and markup. A very essential part of the process that leads to a successful app is done on the Windows Store Dashboard. It is the place where you submit the app, pave its way to the market, and monitor how it is doing there. Also, it is the place where you can get all the information about your existing apps and where you can plan your next app. The submission process is broken down into seven phases. If you haven't already opened a Windows Store developer account, now is the time to do so because you will need it to access your Dashboard. Before you sign up, make sure you have a credit card. The Windows Store requires a credit card to open a developer account even if you had a registration code that entitles you to a free registration.

Once signed in, locate your app listed on the home page under the Apps in progress section and click on Edit. This will direct you to the Release Summary page and the app will be titled AppName: Release 1. The release number will auto-increment each time you submit a new release for the same app. The Release Summary page lists the steps that will get your app ready for Windows Store certification. On this page, you can enter all the info about your Windows Store app and upload its packages for certification. At the moment you will notice that the two buttons at the bottom of the page labeled as Review release info and Submit app for certification are disabled and will remain so until all the previous steps have been marked Complete. The submission progress can always be saved to be resumed later, so it is not necessarily a one-time mission. We'll go over these steps one by one:

1. App name: This is the first step and it includes reserving a unique name for the app.
2. Selling details: This step includes selecting the following:
   • The app price tier option sets the price of your app (for example, free or 1.99 USD).
   • The free trial period option is the number of days the customer can use the app before they start paying to use it. This option is enabled only if the app price tier is not set to Free.
   • The Market where you would like the app to be listed in the Windows Store. Bear in mind that if your app isn't free, your developer account must have a valid tax profile for each country/region you select.
   • The release date option specifies the earliest date when the app will be listed in the Windows Store. The default option is to release as soon as the app passes the certification.
   • The App category and subcategory option indicates where your app be listed in the Store, which in turn lists the apps under Categories.
   • The Hardware requirements option will specify the minimum requirements for the DirectX feature level and the system RAM.
   • The Accessibility option is a checkbox that when checked indicates that the app has been tested to meet accessibility guidelines.
3. Services: In this step, you can add services to your app such as Windows Azure Mobile Services and Live Services. You can also provide products and features that the customer can buy from within the app called In-app offers.
4. Age rating and rating certificates: In this step, you can set an age rating for the app from the available Windows Store age ratings. Also, you can upload country/region-specific rating certificates in case your app is a game.
5. Cryptography: In this step, you specify if your app calls, supports, and contains or uses cryptography or encryption. The following are some of the examples of how an app might apply cryptography or encryption:
   • Use of a digital signature such as authentication or integrity checking
   • Encryption of any data or files that your app uses or accesses
   • Key management, certificate management, or anything that interacts with a public key infrastructure
   • Using a secure communication channel such as NTLM, Kerberos, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), or Transport Layer Security (TLS)
   • Encrypting passwords or other forms of information security
   • Copy protection or digital rights management (DRM)
   • Antivirus protection
6. Packages: In this step, you can upload your app to the Store by uploading the .appxupload file that was created in Visual Studio during the package-creation process. We will shortly see how to create an app package. The latest upload will show on the Release Summary page in the packages box and should be labeled as Validation Complete.
7. Description: In this step you can add a brief description (mandatory) on what the app does for your customers. The description has a 10,000-character limit and will be displayed in the details page of the app's listing in the Windows Store. Besides description, this step contains the following features:
   • App features: This feature is optional. It allows you to list up to 20 of the app's key features.
   • Screenshots: This feature is mandatory and requires to provide at least one .png file image; the first can be a graphic that represents your app but all the other images must be screenshots with a caption taken directly from the app.
   • Notes: This feature is optional. Enter any other info that you think your customer needs to know; for example, changes in an update.
   • Recommended hardware: This feature is optional. List the hardware configurations that the app will need to run.
   • Keywords: This feature is optional. Enter keywords related to the app to help its listing appear in search results.
   • Copyright and trademark info: This feature is mandatory. Enter the copyright and trademark info that will be displayed to customers in the app's listing page.
   • Additional license terms: This feature is optional. Enter any changes to the Standard App License Terms that the customers accept when they acquire this app.
   • Promotional images: This feature is optional. Add images that the editors use to feature apps in the Store.
   • Website: This feature is optional. Enter the URL of the web page that describes the app, if any.
   • Support contact info: This feature is mandatory. Enter the support contact e-mail address or URL of the web page where your customers can reach out for help.
   • Privacy policy: This feature is optional. Enter the URL of the web page that contains the privacy policy.
8. Notes to testers: This is the last step and it includes adding notes about this specific release for those who will review your app from the Windows Store team. The info will help the testers understand and use this app in order to complete their testing quickly and certify the app for the Windows Store.

Each step will remain disabled until the preceding one is completed and the steps that are in progress are labeled with the approximate time (in minutes) it will take you to finish it. And whenever the work in a single step is done, it will be marked Complete on the summary page as shown in the following screenshot:

Submitting the app for certification

After all the steps are marked Complete, you can submit the app for certification. Once you click on Submit for certification, you will receive an e-mail notification that the Windows Store has received your app for certification. The dashboard will submit the app and you will be directed to the Certification status page. There, you can view the progress of the app during the certification process, which includes the following steps:

• Pre-processing: This step will check if you have entered all the required details that are needed to publish the app.
• Security tests: This step tests your app against viruses and malware.
• Technical compliance: This step involves the Windows App certification Kit to check if the app complies with the technical policies. The same assessment can be run locally using Visual Studio, which we will see shortly, before you upload your package.
• Content compliance: This step is done by testers from the Store team who will check if the contents available in the app comply with the content policies set by Microsoft.
• Release: This step involves releasing the app; it shouldn't take much time unless the publish date you've specified in Selling details is in the future, in which case the app will remain in this stage until that date arrives.
• Signing and publishing: This is the final step in the certification process. At this stage, the packages you submitted will be signed with a trusted certificate that matches the technical details of your developer account, thus guaranteeing for the potential customers and viewers that the app is certified by the Windows Store.

The following screenshot shows the certification process on Windows Store Dashboard:

No need to wait on that page; you can click on the Go to dashboard button and you will be redirected to the My apps page. In the box containing the app you just submitted, you will notice that the Edit and Delete links are gone, and instead there is only the Status link, which will take you to the Certification status page. Additionally, a Notifications section will appear on this page and will list status notifications about the app you just submitted, for example:

BookTestApp: Release 1 submitted for certification. 6/4/2013

When the certification process is completed, you will be notified via e-mail with the result. Also, a notification will be added to the dashboard main page showing the result of the certification, either failed or succeeded, with a link to the certification report. In case the app fails, the certification reports will show you which part needs revisiting. Moreover, there are some resources to help you identify and fix the problems and errors that might arise during the certification process; these resources can be found at the Windows Dev Center page for Windows Store apps at the following location:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/jj657968.aspx

Also, you can always check your dashboard to check the status of your app during certification.

After the certification process is completed successfully, the app package will be published to the Store with all the relevant data that will be visible in your app listing page. This page can be accessed by millions of Windows 8 users who will in turn be able to find, install, and use your app.

Once the app has been published to the Store and it's up and running, you can start collecting telemetry data on how it is doing in the Store; these metrics include information on how many times the app has been launched, how long it has been running, and if it is crashing or encountering a JavaScript exception. Once you enable telemetry data collection, the Store will retrieve this info for your apps, analyze them, and summarize them in very informative reports on your dashboard.

Now that we have covered almost everything you need to know about the process of submitting your app to the Windows Store, let us see what is needed to be done in Visual Studio.

The Store within Visual Studio

Windows Store can be accessed from within Visual Studio using the Store menu. Not all the things that we did on the dashboard can be done here; a few very important functionalities such as app package creation are provided by this menu. The Store menu can be located under the Project item in the menu bar using Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate, or if you are using Visual Studio 2012 Express, you can find it directly in the menu bar, and it will appear only if you're working on a Windows Store project or solution.

We will get to see the commands provided by the Store menu in detail and the following is the screenshot that shows how the menu will look:

The command options in the Store menu are as follows:

• Open Developer Account...: This option will open a web page that directs you to Windows Dev Center for Windows Store apps, where you can obtain a developer account for the Store.
• Reserve App Name...: This option will direct you to your Windows Store Dashboard and specifically to the Submit an app page, where you can start with the first step, reserving an app name.
• Acquire Developer License...: This option will open up a dialog window that will prompt you to sign in with your Microsoft Account; after you sign in, it will retrieve your developer license or renew it if you already have one.
• Edit App Manifest: This option will open a tab with Manifest Designer, so you can edit the settings in the app's manifest file.
• Associate App with the Store...: This option will open a wizard-like window in Visual Studio, containing the steps needed to associate an app with the Store. The first step will prompt you to sign in; afterwards, the wizard will retrieve the apps registered with the Microsoft Account you used to sign in. Select an app and the wizard will automatically download the following values to the app's manifest file for the current project on the local computer:
  • Package's display name
  • Package's name
  • Publisher ID
  • Publisher's display name
• Capture Screenshot...: This option will build the current app project and launch it in the simulator instead of the start screen. Once the simulator opens, you can use the Copy screenshot button on the simulator sidebar. This button will be used to take a screenshot of the running app that will save this image as a .png file.
• Create App Package...: This option will open a window containing the Create App Packages wizard that we will see shortly.
• Upload App Package...: This option will open a browser that directs you to the Release Summary page in the Windows Store Dashboard, if your Store account is all set and your app is registered. Otherwise, it will just take you to the sign-in page. In the Release Summary page, you can select Packages and from there upload your app package.

Creating an App Package

One of the most important utilities in the Store menu is the app package creation, which will build and create a package for the app that we can upload to the Store at a later stage. This package is consistent with all the app-specific and developer-specific details that the Store requires. Moreover, the developers do not have to worry about any of the intricacies of the whole package-creation process, which is abstracted for us and available via a wizard-link window.

In the Create App Packages wizard, we can create an app package for the Windows Store directly, or create the one to be used for testing or local distribution. This wizard will prompt you to specify metadata for the app package.

The following screenshot shows the first two steps involved in this process:

In the first step, the wizard will ask you if you want to build packages to upload to the Windows Store; choose Yes if you want to build a package for the Store or choose No if you want a package for testing and local use. Taking the first scenario in consideration, click on Sign In to proceed and complete the sign-in process using your Microsoft Account.

After a successful sign-in, the wizard will prompt you to select the app name (step 2 of the preceding screenshot) either by clicking on the apps listed in the wizard or choosing the Reserve Name link that will direct you to the Windows Store Dashboard to complete the process and reserve a new app name. The following screenshot shows step 3 and step 4:

Step 3 contains the Select and Configure Packages section in which we will select Output location that points to where the package files will be created. Also, in this section we can enter a version number for this package or chose to make it auto-increment each time we package the app. Additionally, we can select the build configuration we want for the package from the Neutral, ARM, x64, and x86 options and by default, the current active project platform will be selected and a package will be produced for each configuration type selected.

The last option in this section is the Include public symbol files option. Selecting this option will generate the public symbols files (.pdb) and add it to the package, which will help the store later in analyzing your app and will be used to map crashes of your app. Finally, click on Create and wait while the packaging is being processed. Once completed, the Package Creation Completed section appears (step 4) and will show Output location as a link that will direct you to the package files. Also, there is a button to directly launch the Windows App Certification Kit. Windows App Certification Kit will validate the app package against the Store requirements and generate a report of the validation.

The following screenshot shows the window containing the Windows App Certification Kit process:

Alternatively, there is a second scenario for creating an app package but it is more aimed at testing, which is identical to the process we just saw except that you have to choose No in the first page on the wizard and there is no need to sign-in with the Microsoft Account. This option will end the wizard when the package creation has completed and display the link to the output folder but you will not be able to launch the Windows App Certification Kit. The packages created with this option can only be used on a computer that has a developer license installed. This scenario will be used more often since the package for the Store should ideally be tested locally first. After creating the app package for testing or local distribution, you can install it on a local machine or device.

Let's install the package locally. Start the Create App Packages wizard; choose No in the first step, complete the wizard, and find files of the app package just created in the output folder that you specified for the package location. Name this as PackageName_Test. This folder will contain an .appx file, a security certificate, a Windows PowerShell script, and other files. The Windows PowerShell script generated with the app package will be used to install the package for testing. Navigate to the Output folder and install the app package. Locate and select the script file named Add-AppDevPackage, and then right-click and choose Run with PowerShell as shown in the following screenshot:

Run the script and it will perform the following steps:

1. It displays information about Execution Policy Change and prompts about changing the execution policy. Enter Y to continue.
2. It checks if you have a developer license; in case there wasn't any script, it will prompt you to get one.
3. It checks and verifies whether the app package and the required certificates are present; if any item is missing, you will be notified to install them before the developer package is installed.
4. It checks for and installs any dependency packages such as the WinJS library.
5. It displays the message Success: Your package was successfully installed.
6. Press Enter to continue and the window will close.

The aforementioned steps are shown in the following screenshot:

Once the script has completed successfully, you can look for your app on the Start screen and start it.

Note that for users who are on a network and don't have permission to access the directory where the Add-AppDevPackage PowerShell script file is located, an error message might appear. This issue can be solved by simply copying the contents of the output folder to the local machine before running the script. Also, for any security-related issues, you might want to consult the Windows Developer Center for solutions.

Summary

In this article, we saw the ins and outs of the Windows Store Dashboard and we covered the steps of the app submission process leading to the publishing of the app in the Store. We also learned about the Store menu in Visual Studio and the options it provides to interact with the dashboard. Moreover, we learned how to create app packages and how to deploy the app locally for testing.

Resources for Article:

Further resources on this subject:

• WPF 4.5 Application and Windows [Article]
• HTML5 Canvas [Article]
• Responsive Design with Media Queries [Article]