Everybody knows about AppSource by now. Everybody is also struggling how to make AppSource work for them, and especially how to provide customers and prospects a trial of their functionality. You could create a sandbox environment and try things out in there, but that doesn’t have test data that is specific for your product. You could install the product into a production tenant, but then you have an app in there that you might not want after all.
One of the lesser known features of AppSource is the Test Drive. This feature provides an ISV partner a completely isolated trial experience of their product, in an environment that is completely in their control. What’s even better is that the Test Drive can be done in a number of different ways, so you can tailor it exactly to your requirements.
The Test Drive can be a part of a comprehensive marketing strategy, in which you can implement an environment that can showcase even the most complex features of your software, in a way that provides ample opportunity to your customers to learn how to use your product in a non-production environment that is still in the cloud, without having to get a team of consultants onsite.
The way that it works is essentially that the Test Drive is a standalone tenant that has a template company. This template company has your product already installed, and it has proper test data already populated. You can create all the data that you need for your product to run properly. Then, through the SaaSification techniques, you would implement a path into the features of your product, taking the user into your product one step at a time.
If you are interested in providing a Test Drive, please watch this video, in which I go into some more detail about this feature.
To find out more about the test drive, and other information about apps for Business Central, visit http://aka.ms/ReadyToGo