Hi all,
We built an embedded Shopify app — an AI customer-service assistant. The core feature connects the merchant’s Gmail via Google OAuth so the app can draft AI replies to customer emails and trigger Shopify actions (order lookup, refunds, address changes, cancellations, returns) straight from those emails.
Our submission was rejected. As far as we can tell it isn’t a bug — the problem seems to be that our main page (“Emails”) shows a “Connect Gmail” screen until the merchant authorizes Google. During review the reviewer doesn’t complete that Gmail connection, so they only ever see the connect screen and conclude the app “doesn’t do anything” inside Shopify.
For anyone who has shipped an app with a required external OAuth dependency:
1. Do reviewers actually follow written setup steps (e.g. “connect this Google account”) using test credentials we provide, or do they expect the app to show value without any external setup?
2. Is a screencast/demo video an accepted way to prove functionality when the reviewer won’t connect an external account?
3. Has anyone solved this with a demo/sandbox mode that shows sample emails + actions without a live Gmail connection — and did that satisfy review?
4. What do you put in the review notes / testing instructions to avoid the “app provides no functionality” rejection?
Any experience is appreciated. Thanks!