Review process

Dear fellow Apple Developers,


We are trying to get an app on the App Store that uses background location management. According to the review team, our app is used solely for the purpose of tracking employees, and is thus unsuitable for the App Store. The guideline the review team says we do not follow is 2.5.4.

There are a couple of things we see differently about this, part of which is that the people who use our app are independent contractors working for the license holders of the app. These people are neither our employees nor employees of the license holders of the app.

A part of the app uses background location to clock in and out of a geolocation based workspace. This part is only accessible to users part of our clients’ network. They receive an SMS link to be added to specific projects

One of the possible solutions they offered was giving the users more features that use the background location tracking. 

Does anyone have any suggestions regarding:

A feature / set of features meant for general users that would make the app more “appropriate for the App Store” according to Apple’s review team?

Another possible solution that we found in Apple documentation and was also suggested by the Apple team, was to use an Apple Business Management account to distribute the app to users. We think this would make the app an internal business app and permit us to use the background location services as they are now. Can anyone confirm that the internal business applications are more permissive in this respect than apps distributed to any user via the App Store?

The main problem we see in this approach is that we need to spend a lot of additional time to setup this system, and, if possible at all, automate the creation of managed apple IDs for the contractors. This is a problem because the individual contractors are unknown up until the point where they are added to the system. At which point they need to be able to access the app immediately as well. This is why we would much rather have the app freely available on the App Store and are open to suggestions in order to achieve this result.

Any help, suggestions of features or resources to get a clear answer, would be much appreciated. 
Answered by Tomato in 658514022

We are trying to get an app on the App Store that uses background location management. According to the review team, our app is used solely for the purpose of tracking employees, and is thus unsuitable for the App Store. The guideline the review team says we do not follow is 2.5.4.

And why does the app need to run in the background mode?
Accepted Answer

We are trying to get an app on the App Store that uses background location management. According to the review team, our app is used solely for the purpose of tracking employees, and is thus unsuitable for the App Store. The guideline the review team says we do not follow is 2.5.4.

And why does the app need to run in the background mode?
Because it is part of the utility of the app that the user can be clocked in and out fully unattended. If the user has to have the app running in the foreground, they might as well just fill in the information to enter into the logbook. However, people working in construction (the end users of our app) have a lot of reason to not be minding a phone but their feet and hands.
Review process
 
 
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