Mar 30, 2018

Best Practices: Oculus Developer Dashboard

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The Developer Dashboard⁠ is where you publish and manage your VR apps on the Oculus Platform.

In this best practices guide, we will provide more information on how to best utilize organizations, member roles, and app groupings for all app types. We'll also cover Oculus Explore stories like Events, Announcements, and In-App Content for mobile apps.

Organizations

Before you can publish your app to the Oculus Platform, you need to create or join an organization.

Creating an Organization

When creating a new organization, the user account you are using will be designated as the “Owner” of this organization. Make sure that you login to the proper account prior to making the organization. (Read the 'Member Roles' section below for more info on the Owner role.)

You will be asked to provide payment information to establish your organization. Please fill in the requested information on the Payment Info site (found in the Developer Dashboard sidebar, under Manage → Your Organization Name → Settings → Payment Info) as completely and accurately as possible. Tax Information and Bank Information are only required if you intend to charge for your apps on our platform.

Refer to 'Manage Your Organization and Users' for more details.

Naming Your Organization

Choose your organization's name carefully, as it will be associated with any app you distribute and revenue payout. The organization name must match the entity listed for payouts and contracts. That said, there are times when you just need a placeholder.

Some developers create a "test" organization that may eventually blossom into a “true” organization, which happens after publishing multiple apps and adding tiered members. For example, a developer may create an organization titled “My Test Org” to become familiar with the app submissions process. Other situations that warrant an organization rename would be if an entire company goes through a name change, or a new company is spun off of an existing company.

In the case of needing a name change of your organization because it is no longer accurate, contact the Developer Support Team and ask for an “organization rename.” You should not create a secondary organization.

Changing Organization Ownership

If you need to change the “Owner” of your organization, you should be prepared to supply any legal documentation that proves you are the current owner of the organization. You'll also need to assign an “Admin” role to the new owner's account within your organization. (If the new owner does not have an account, have them create one and invite them into your organization.) Then, the original “Owner” will need to contact the Developer Support Team and ask for an “organization ownership transfer.”

Prior to contacting developer support, make sure the new owner's information is populated under the 'Payment Info' site to reflect this ownership change. Please ensure the following fields are populated with the new owner's information:

Update the registered e-mail address under Contact Information to the e-mail address of the new owner. If present, update the remittance and invoice e-mail addresses as well.

Update any personal information (names, addresses, phone numbers) to reflect the new owner's information.

Please ensure the financial entity associated with the developer organization is accurate. Please update any and all bank and tax information if present, or if you intend to charge for any of your apps. Read 'Manage Your Financial Account' for more details.

Member Roles

There are four types of roles in your developer organization. Each of these roles can be assigned to members within your organization. Each role has different access rights - the roles are Owner, Admin, Developer, and Finance. To view your members: in the Developer Dashboard sidebar, go to Manage → Your Organization Name → Settings → Members.

Owner - The Owner is the user associated with the organization at time of creation. The Owner has access to all development and financial information for an organization. When changes are made to the organization, the Owner will be notified (found in the Developer Dashboard sidebar, under Manage → Notifications).

Admin - Admins have access to all development and financial information for an organization. Admins do not get notifications regarding changes made to the organization.

Developer - Developers have access to all development related functions (the Manage Builds tab, the Platform Services tab, etc.) that are required to define, build, or manage an application. The Developer role is set at the app level, so you can add developers only for the app they are working on.

Finance - The Finance role provides a user access to all the financial information for an organization. The Finance role does not have access to any app development information.

Read 'Manage Your Organization and Users' for a closer look at how to assign these roles (excluding the Owner role) to members of your organization.

Note: Oculus usernames can be changed once every six months⁠. As such, visible names in your organization's member roles dashboard will also reflect this change if a member in your developer organization decided to change his or her alias within this time-frame.

App Grouping

App Grouping is a way to organize and manage the apps under your organization. After apps are grouped, you can apply common platform app settings to multiple apps within the same grouping. To view your app groups: in the Developer Dashboard sidebar, go to Manage → Your Organization Name → Settings → App Groupings.

An app group is automatically created when an app is created. You can create a new app group that allows you to start fresh without any predefined platform app settings. Once you have an app grouping, updating any platform app settings within an app group will immediately sync to all apps within that group. Pro Tip: You are able to create new groups and move apps into them, but keep in mind that you currently cannot delete app groupings. As such, be mindful of the app groups you create.

Refer to 'Manage Apps' for more information on how to group apps.

Discoverability

In your Developer Dashboard, after you've created your mobile app, you will see the opportunity to take advantage of Oculus discoverability features. These include Events, Announcements and In-App Content. They are all stories that are shared with people via Oculus Explore (currently mobile-only). Oculus Explore is the first thing people see when they put on their mobile headset. Through these stories, you can increase your mobile app's exposure to a wider range of people. Today, we'll cover how to best utilize Oculus Explore and the stories within.

You can access the Discoverability features in the Developer Dashboard sidebar. Go to Manage → Your Organization Name → Your App → Discoverability. Under this section, you'll find the three options. Each of these options, when published, appear in the Oculus Explore feed as a “story.”

When using stories (Events, Announcements, and In-App Content), there are some best practices to keep in mind:

Use stories as much as you can! Stories can only help your app gain exposure. The more stories you’ve submitted, the more opportunities there are to connect your content to a target audience. Any stories submitted can appear on users’ front pages in VR (Explore feed), search, and potentially other places in the future (e.g. notifications).

Preview your stories in the headset through the ‘Developer Feed’. Ensure all aspects of the story are working: play the video preview, launch the deeplink, and verify all images and text are displayed as expected.

Use short, informative titles for your stories. Lengthy titles will end up being truncated, which may confuse users on the home screen.

The cover art for the story should be relevant and eye-catching, and read well at small sizes. This is one of the best ways to get users to click through.

Don’t add watermarks or logos in the bottom third of the cover art for your stories, as text or icons may be added in this area. You don’t need to show your app logo or title at all for the cover art, as we will display this alongside your story.

Ensure your deeplinks are functional and correct. Users will have the best experience if clicking through the story takes them directly to where you want them to go. For example, if you've released a new holiday-themed level for your app, clicking through the story should take the user directly to that level.

Last, but not least, utilize the Explore API if you want to submit a large volume of stories! To request access to this API, send an e-mail to explore@oculus.com.

Refer to 'Discoverability' for more information on these features.

Apps

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