All Collections
Mobile App
Launching a custom branded mobile app with Open Tender
Launching a custom branded mobile app with Open Tender

Get up and running in just days with a fully customized app of your own!

JC Harrington avatar
Written by JC Harrington
Updated over a week ago

Open Tender offers its customers a fully branded mobile app for both iOS and Android for FREE! You heard that right - it doesn't cost anything upfront.

The Open Tender app is built with React Native, which means it works on both iOS and Android, and it's fully open source, which means you get access to all the code. This gives you the flexibility to hire your own mobile developer if you want design something really differentiated, but there's a lot you can accomplish in terms of customizing the design without a developer at all. It all depends on how much time and energy you want to invest.

Set up a GitHub organization for your company

First things first, you need to sign up for a GitHub organization for your company. This is because the Open Tender mobile app lives in a GitHub repository ("repo" for short), and you're going to need to "fork" this repository into your own GitHub organization. This is what allows you to launch your own customized app, and forking a repo allows you to pull in updates from the Open Tender "upstream" repo, which allows your app to continue to benefit from new features and improvements while still maintaining a custom design. It's pretty cool.

You will need to sign up for a GitHub Team account with 3 seats. One for yourself and two for two Open Tender developers. We will provide the GitHub usernames of these two developers once you have created the account.

Set up developer accounts with both Apple and Google

Setting up an Apple Developer Account

Head over to the Apple Developer site and click on the "Account" option in the header. The first thing you'll need to do is sign in with an Apple ID or create one. Once you do this, you'll need to sign up for the Apple Developer Program.

When you do this, it's very important to sign up as an Organization and NOT as an Individual. This will make it a lot easier to share access to this account with Open Tender and any other developers who will be helping you manage the app.

In order to do this, you need to provide a D-U-N-S number to Apple. If you don't have one, you can get one for free by following the prompts on the Apple Developer site. Please note that it can take a few days to obtain a D-U-N-S number so you should get started with this process as soon as possible.

Once your Apple Developer account has been established, you will need to add two Open Tender developers. We will provide the email addresses of the Open Tender developers when you get to this step.

After you sign into your account, click on the Users and Access link under App Store Connect:

This will take you to the Users & Access section within App Store Connect. Click the plus icon per below:

This will open up a dialog window like below. Add the Open Tender email addresses provided as Admin users with all boxes checked. It's very important to check the box next to "Access to Cloud Managed Developer ID Certificate" under Additional Resources per below, which will not be checked by default.
โ€‹
โ€‹

Click the Invite button and then send us an email to let us know the invitations have been sent.

Setting up an Android Developer account via the Google Play Console

Head over to the Google Play Console to create an Android Developer account. You will need to associate this Google Play account with a Google account. Once you've done this, you will need to invite two Open Tender developers via the Users & Permissions page. You can do this via the blue Invite New Users button you see in the screenshot below. We will provide the email addresses of the Open Tender developers when you get to this step.

Set up a Google Maps API Key for your app

You will also need to set up a separate Google Maps API key for your mobile app by going here: Google Maps Platform Credentials.

Select a project and then click the CREATE CREDENTIALS button at the top of the page. Choose API key in the dropdown per below.

You can leave the API key unrestricted for now. Unlike on the web, it's very difficult for people to get their hands on an API key in your app.

Copy & paste the API key and then go to App Config > Settings > Google Maps in the Open Tender Admin Portal. Paste this API key in the Google Maps API Key for Mobile App field.

Did this answer your question?