Test Flight Groups - How to send a build to a group?

Question

Apple's announcemnt on TestFlight Groups says:

Organize your testers into groups to quickly send builds, provide separate instructions on where to focus, and apply an action to several testers at once in TestFlight

How do I do this? I have my groups set up, my build has been uploaded and passed Beta App Store review. But I can't figure out how to send the load to a specific group.

Solution 1

It's somewhat misleading. You can only create a single list of testers for an app, and you send the build to those testers. If you want to change who gets it for the next build you send, you can modify the list, but you cannot send out multiple builds to different groups at once.

Groups only come into play as a filtering mechanism when you're adding external testers to the tester list for your app. So, if you have a group set up and you want to send a build to that group, you'd do this:

1. Go to the Prerelease->External Testers tab
2. Hit the plus sign by "Testers" and select "Add Existing Testers"
3. Use the Groups dropdown to select the group you are interested in. This will filter your master list of testers
4. Hit the top level checkbox to select everyone in the group and then press the Add button

My guess is that isn't what you were hoping to do, but that's all the 'Groups' functionality does for you - it's just a way to tag your testers. I only see it being helpful if you've got multiple apps with different sets of testers, and you want to be able to easily maintain the separate lists of testers.

Solution 2

Starting today, you can create different groups and manage different builds for each group. You just need to do the following:

1- Go to iTunes connect and select your app.

2- Hit the 'TestFlight' tab.

3- On the left menu, there's a 'New group' button.

This is the official apple message you will see when you go to TestFlight now:

What’s New in TestFlight

Multiple Build Support

TestFlight now lets you distribute and test multiple builds at the same time, so testers can choose from a number of builds to test.

Enhanced Groups

TestFlight groups have changed. You can now do more with them, like create groups of TestFlight users, and each group can test a different build. To get you started, we’ve added all of your existing external testers to the group “External Testers,” which you can edit at any time. If you previously created groups, learn how to use them with the new TestFlight features.

Improved Testing

Testers can continue testing a build when it goes live on the App Store, minimizing disruptions. iTunes Connect Users can also access all active builds, letting them seamlessly compare different builds.

Comments

[foob.ar]

I want to send a build to a group of External testers, isn't that possible?

[jeffro37]

@foob.ar That was a mistake on my part that I just corrected. The above actually references external testers, which is what the Group functionality is setup for.

[foob.ar]

Thanks for clarifying. However, I could not find how to send a distribution to a selected Group. Say I have 50 testers in total and 20 are in a specific group, how to I send a test version to these 20 testers only? They only way I found was to remove the other 30 testers, send the test build, and add the remaining 30 testers after the test period had expired.

[jeffro37]

Yea, that's what I was trying to explain in my answer. You create Groups at an account level, and if you want to change internal testers on a specific app, you need to remove all the testers, and re-add a different group using 'Add Existing Testers'.

[Johan Karlsson]

But what actually happens when you have an approved beta build and press the "Send invites". Do you get a list of which group to send to? Nobody seems to know what really happens. "My guess... " in answer does not give me confidence. What is interesting is no know what happens when the user presses "Send invites".

[Chewie The Chorkie]

"New Group" does not show up on the left by default.