Google Play Service Account Setup

This section outlines the different steps to configure a service account with access to edit the app on Google Play, and the creation of a Google Auth JSON file allowing us to use that service account.

Please follow the below steps to obtain this file:

1. Link your Google Play account with a Google Cloud console API project.
2. Create a service account inside your linked Google Cloud console project.
3. Download a the auth json file of the service account.
4. Grant access to the service account to your Google Play account.

1. Link your Google Play account with a Google Cloud console API project

• Login to the Google Account associated with your main Google Play account (https://play.google.com/apps/publish).
• Navigate to the sidebar to “Settings” > “API access.”
• If your Google account does not have any API projects, it will appear as below. In this case, click the blue “CREATE NEW PROJECT” button.

• If your Google account has API projects, but they are not linked, it will appear as below. In this case, you should click either the “LINK” button next to your existing project, or click the blue “CREATE NEW PROJECT” button. 

• Once you have an API project linked to your Google Play account, it will appear as below. 

2. Create a service account inside your linked Google Cloud console project

• Once you have an API project linked to your Google Play account, click the “CREATE SERVICE ACCOUNT” button at the bottom of the “API access” page. This will open a dialog, as below. 

• In the dialog, click the “Google API Console” link, which will open in the Google Cloud console.

• From this page, click the “CREATE SERVICE ACCOUNT” button at the top, which will open the service account creation page.

• Under “Service account name”, enter “ReadyEducationPublisher.” 
• Under “Service account description”, enter “Service account to grant Ready Education access to publish app updates.”

• Click the blue “CREATE” button, to be directed to the page for granting the service account access to the project. 

• Under “Role”, select “Service Account” > “Service Account User.”

• Click the blue “CONTINUE” button, to be directed to the below page which will allow you to download the key as a JSON file.

3. Download an auth JSON file of the service account

• From this page, click “CREATE KEY”, to open the key creation menu.

• From the key creation menu, select “JSON” and click the blue “CREATE” button. This will create the key and download the JSON file to your computer.

• You can now close this browser tab and return to the Google Play console tab.

4. Grant access to the service account to your Google Play account

• Login to the Google Account associated with your main Google Play account (https://play.google.com/apps/publish).
• Navigate to the sidebar to “Settings” > “API access.”
• You should now see your service account with no access granted.

• Click the blue “GRANT ACCESS” button next to your service account, this will open the permissions page

• Under “Role”, select “Release manager.”
• Optional: if you have several apps or plan to have other apps in this Google Play account, it is a good security practice to restrict access to only the app(s) you want to grant us access to. You can do so by selecting the “Add an app” on the “Permissions” line and selecting the app you want to restrict the permissions to. You can then uncheck all the global permissions (see screenshot).
• Click “ADD USER” at the bottom of the dialog.