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Available on any Dovetail plan that includes Channels.

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Overview

The App Store integration imports customer reviews from App Store Connect into a Dovetail Channel, where they’re automatically analyzed and grouped into themes so you can track sentiment and trends over time. When you set up the connection, you choose which of your apps to sync reviews from and how far back to backfill existing reviews. Learn more about Channels →

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Prerequisites

App Store Connect and Dovetail are separate systems, and the person who holds the Apple key isn’t always the person who connects Dovetail. It’s fine for a developer to generate the key in App Store Connect and hand the three items over to whoever is doing the Dovetail setup.

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In App Store Connect

  • A Team API key, not an Individual key. Assign the key App Manager or Admin. Even though Apple’s documentation lists other roles that can see reviews, our own testing has shown that only App Manager or Admin roles work reliably with the App Store Connect API.
  • The three credentials that come with the key: Key ID, Issuer ID, and the .p8 private key file.
  • A person who can create the key. Only someone who can open Users and Access → Integrations → App Store Connect API in App Store Connect can generate a Team API key — usually the Account Holder or an Admin. They can then send the three items above to whoever is connecting Dovetail. Once the key is saved in Dovetail, the .p8 file isn’t shown again, so keep a copy somewhere safe. See Apple’s guide to generating a Team key.

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In Dovetail

  • To connect an App Store account — from Settings → Integrations, or by entering the key while adding a source — you need workspace role Contributor or Manager. Viewers can’t connect the account.
  • To add App Store as a source on a Channel, you need Can edit or Full access on that Channel. You can manage this in the Channel’s share settings.
  • To disconnect, reconnect, change, or delete an App Store source later, you need to be either a workspace admin or the person who originally connected it.
  • Everyone else can still use the reviews in the Channel once the source is set up, as long as they have access to that Channel.

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Set up the App Store integration

You can connect the App Store from either: Both flows use the same credentials.

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1. Start the connection

In the Connect data source modal, select App Store. If you’re setting up from Settings, click Connect on the App Store card and Dovetail opens the Connect App Store dialog.

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2. Enter your credentials

On the credentials step (titled Connect with your app store), Dovetail asks you to:
Add your app store credentials to set up the integration.
Fill in:
  • Key ID — from App Store Connect (up to 15 characters).
  • Issuer ID — from App Store Connect (up to 50 characters).
  • .P8 file — click Browse file or drag and drop your .p8 private key file. Only .p8 files are accepted; other file types are rejected with the message “Only .p8 files are allowed.”
Click Next (Channel flow) or Save (Settings flow) to store the credentials. For security, Dovetail doesn’t display the .p8 file again after you save. You only need to upload a new one if you rotate the team key.

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3. Choose which apps to sync

Once your credentials are validated, Dovetail queries App Store Connect for the apps your team key can access and shows them in a picker. You can:
  • Select All apps to sync reviews from every app the team key has access to, or
  • Select one or more specific apps.
There is no maximum number of apps you can select.

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4. Choose how far back to import

Pick a backfill window for existing reviews:
  • Last 7 days
  • Last 30 days
  • Last 90 days
  • Last 6 months
Reviews created before the window you pick aren’t imported. After the backfill, Dovetail checks App Store Connect hourly and imports any new reviews.

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5. Finish setup

Confirm the setup and click Finish. Reviews start importing into your Channel and are automatically analyzed and grouped into themes.

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What transfers to Dovetail

For each App Store review, Dovetail imports:

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What doesn’t transfer

The following aren’t imported, even if they exist in App Store Connect or on the review itself:
  • Device model
  • App version
  • Reviewer language
  • Any thumbs-up/thumbs-down or helpfulness counts
  • Attachments or screenshots
  • Any App Store Connect analytics (impressions, downloads, sentiment scores)
  • Historical edits to a review or response
Need a field that isn’t on this list? Let us know.

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Import App Store reviews into a Channel

Once the integration is connected, reviews from the apps you selected are imported into the Channel and continue to sync as new reviews are posted. Inside the Channel, Dovetail will:
  • Automatically analyze each review’s content.
  • Group reviews into themes.
  • Let you filter and pivot on Rating, Territory, and Recipient name.
  • Let you chat with the reviews using Ask Dovetail.

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Troubleshooting

The most common cause is a team key that doesn’t have the right role. The App Store Connect API only returns reviews for team keys with App Manager or Admin permissions — other roles will fail, even though Apple’s help center lists them as review-viewing roles. Regenerate the key with one of those two roles.Also double-check that:
  • The Key ID matches the key exactly (no leading or trailing spaces).
  • The Issuer ID is the team-level issuer ID from the top of the Users and Access → Integrations → Team Keys page, not the key-specific ID.
  • The .p8 file you uploaded is the one for that specific key. Apple only lets you download it once, at the moment of key creation.
Reviews only start importing after you’ve completed the app selection step and clicked Finish. If you connected credentials but didn’t select at least one app, no reviews will sync.If you did select apps, check that the apps you picked have reviews in App Store Connect within the backfill window you chose (7 days, 30 days, 90 days, or 6 months). Reviews older than the window aren’t imported.
Dovetail only imports reviews created on or after the backfill start date you selected. If you picked Last 30 days, reviews older than 30 days won’t appear. To pull in older reviews, disconnect the source, reconnect it, and choose a longer backfill window on setup.
Yes. A workspace can hold more than one App Store Connect account, and each source can use a different one. In most cases you don’t need to — one Team key can see every app in its Apple organization, so if you just want to add more apps from the same organization, use the app picker instead of adding a second account.When you need a second account. Connect a second account when you have a second Apple organization — for example, two brands, two subsidiaries, or an agency plus a client. Give each account a clear developer name so people can tell them apart.Where to add accounts. You can add extra accounts from:
  • Settings → Integrations → App Store, using Add account.
  • The Add source flow inside a Channel, using the App Store account picker.
Then pick the right account when you choose which apps to sync.Each source uses one account. A source can’t mix reviews from two Apple organizations. Two organizations means two sources, and because you can’t add two App Store sources to the same Channel, a second organization typically needs its own Channel.Reconnecting and the workspace Sources setup path. These two screens behave differently from the flows above:
  • If you enter credentials while adding a source from the workspace Sources page, or while reconnecting a source that lost its connection, Dovetail treats the credentials as an update to the first App Store account in the workspace — not as a new account.
  • In practice, that means you can’t create a second account from those screens, and a reconnected source may end up attached to the first account rather than the one it was originally using.
If you have more than one account and need to reconnect a source, edit the correct account first in Settings → Integrations → App Store, then reconnect the source from there rather than pasting a different organization’s key into the reconnect form.

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Disconnect or delete the App Store source

Each Channel data source has two separate actions in the Sources dialog. They aren’t interchangeable.

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Disconnect

Choose Disconnect to stop syncing new reviews from App Store into this Channel while keeping the reviews already imported. Dovetail asks:
Are you sure you want to disconnect [source] from [channel]? This will immediately stop the Channel from ingesting any new data. Any data already imported from this source will remain in the Channel.
Confirm with Disconnect.

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Delete

Choose Delete to remove the source and all data points imported from it. Dovetail asks:
Are you sure you want to delete [source] from [channel]? This will delete all associated data points. This is permanent and cannot be undone.
Confirm with Delete. This can’t be reversed.

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Revoke access on Apple’s side

Disconnecting or deleting the source in Dovetail doesn’t revoke the team key on Apple’s side. If you want to fully cut off access, go to Users and Access → Integrations → Team Keys in App Store Connect and revoke the key you used to connect Dovetail.