Rating apps in the Play Store

[AscensionEdge]

Is there any way to rate apps in the Play Store as a Google Workspace user? I'm able to view Ratings and reviews, but am unable to post any myself. I do have admin access for my organization.

[cryptochrome · Accepted solution]

No, there isn't - and that is infuriating. I have had long lasting battles with both the Play Store support team as well as the Google Workspace support team. They are both pointing fingers at each other. The Play Store team claims it's a rule imposed by the Workspace team, and the Workspace team claims it's a bug that the Play Store team needs to fix. Perpeteum Mobile. 

This has been going on for years now, so don't get your hopes up for a fix. Google Workspace customers can't rate apps on the Play Store. Not even Google Workspace apps. 

It used to work years ago...

[cryptochrome · Accepted solution]

No, there isn't - and that is infuriating. I have had long lasting battles with both the Play Store support team as well as the Google Workspace support team. They are both pointing fingers at each other. The Play Store team claims it's a rule imposed by the Workspace team, and the Workspace team claims it's a bug that the Play Store team needs to fix. Perpeteum Mobile. 

This has been going on for years now, so don't get your hopes up for a fix. Google Workspace customers can't rate apps on the Play Store. Not even Google Workspace apps. 

It used to work years ago...

[cewood]

This is so frustrating, and frankly unacceptable. I'm slowly collecting reasons to ditch my GSuite subscription, and this is the latest addition. It's a shame so many of us were silly enough to put our trust in Evilcorp and thought they'd actually listen to and care about their users. Time to vote with your money and take your business elsewhere.

[dan2]

I am astonished that google still hasn't fixed this. They are providing a worse service to their paying customers! That's taking the economy of free to new levels! As crypotchrome says, this has been going on for years, how could they not fix it.

Google are so good at tech that it's hard to believe they'd stuff this up so badly. I figured for a long time that it was intentional aka they figure organisations don't want people posting reviews?

But your intel crypto puts a new angle on it, they are merely incompetent .... hmmm

[dan2]

Question to you guys: if we do cancel the G-Suite subscription, do we get back the right to write reviews?

[icrew]

Are you referring to Google Workspace Individual (https://workspace.google.com/individual/)? With any of the other Workspace plans, when you cancel Workspace, any accounts in the Workspace instance go away. 

(G Suite was rebranded to Workspace in 2020, by the way.)

[dan2]

Ah yes I am now referring to Workspace 

[icrew]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon's_razor

[dan2]

Nice one icrew, i'd not heard of that one, will remember, and i suppose you are probably right

[JanAtheCPA]

I have been researching this issue a couple of times a year since my web host migrated me to GSuite a number of years ago.  I am also an individual with a domain that I want to keep forever, and GSuite-now-Workspace is the only way to maintain it along with access to the rest of Google's must-have apps,  but this has been really frustrating - as we have all experienced, it's just sad (and irritating) when excellent Android apps keep sending reminders that they need our reviews.   Anyway, in my semi-annual search today, I actually found the following at https://support.google.com/googleplay/answer/4346705 ), which seems like a definitive negative:

When you can write reviews in the Play Store

• You can only review apps and games you’ve downloaded.
• You can’t leave a review from an enterprise account, like an account for work or school.

[ChrisH4422]

Came here hoping that this might have gotten fixed and I had missed something. I'm seriously just over this workspace crap. 

I put up with it when I had a free ws account, then they decided to start charging home users who just wanted to use their own domain. I didn't want to risk losing my email so I changed over to the paid offering only to have them announce that home offers could still access the system free of charge. 

I don't even know why I've been too lazy to cancel, especially since I've been outright lied to when trying to follow their instructions to switch back to the free service. I was told on multiple occasions that I was "all set" and had been moved back to the free service only to be charged again (and again and again). I guess they do this because lazy people like me just keep paying but this "quirk" is the proverbial last straw. Now they not only charge me when they tell me multiple times that they won't, they're still "punishing" me for the privilege. 

Off to find a better email hosting solution now...

[eni]

This is a quite silly limitation which totally makes no sense at all and bugs a lot of Workspace users, mine as well.

Im pretty sure Google implemented this because a big Enterprise customer wanted this, but why not make a Flag in the Admin console but instead piss off a lot of Users? Its now 5 years and still no fix, its really frustrating 😞

[samuelryan]

It's a very frustrating limitation for those of us that use Workspace for personal to get a custom domain or group of related accounts, like family. It should be an admin setting. 

For a real enterprise it could make sense though. Companies often wouldn't want employees commenting publicly from their work as it will be associated with the company. 

Still a reductions and annoying restriction, just going that a valid reason could help understand a tiny little bit. 

[DivinesLight · Accepted solution]

Go to Play Store, click on your profile icon -> Manage apps and device -> Ratings and Review you get to a place where you can review them but when I submit it says "error while retrieving information from server"

I remember some time ago I could review apps as a workplace user from this obscure hidden way, but it doesn't work for me, maybe works for you? let me know

[AscensionEdge]

I knew I came across something like this at some point! But yeah, same error: "Error retrieving information from server. DF-DFERH-01"

[JanAtheCPA]

I had a momentary glimmer of hope, @DivinesLight , but of course I got the same error message as @AscensionEdge .

Sigh.

[DivinesLight]

@JanAtheCPA @AscensionEdge  maybe we should all escalate this issue, maybe they fix it?

[AscensionEdge]

Escalate how? If you know of a way, I'd be interested to give it a shot.

[DivinesLight]

The usual keep bumping into support

[cryptochrome]

I tried escalating it. Multiple times in the past couple of years (yes, years). It's futile. Pointless. The Google Workspace team points the finger at the Google Play team, saying they don't support the Play Store, and the Play Store team points the finger at the Google Workspace team. Rinse and repeat. 

[JimRatherFly]

This is the same kind of treatment we, paying customers get with Nest devices too!

Google. I won't say I am leaving you, because it is not simple to leave once you have helped so many get on a platform.

However, I will say that I am looking for more options to leave than I would if your treated me fairly.

Some here have said it MIGHT make sense to not allow us, paid, admin-capable, WorkPlace users, to review or use Nest devices because we have work accounts., but if that were so, I would expect a work-around on WorkPlace accounts with less than say 20?

Or how about an option to create an alias that allows reviews and nest?

To not fix it, AND to not address why, or other options, is a very aggressive behavior toward us.

In short.... Google removes functions for those customers that PAY.  Backwards as you can get.

[MikEroBrew]

I am guessing this is because a business may not want its employees to write reviews with company emails because this could be seen as an endorsement by the company rather than by the individual. But I am not a business, I just wanted a custom domain for my email. There should be an admin setting to turn this off. But even if you give up and want to switch to a 'regular' account, there is no way to migrate. You will lose all your store purchases and need to find a way to migrate all your emails, drive docs, etc. yourself. Ugh!

[ReeceHart]

I can review in Google maps as a Google Workspace user. The most straightforward cause is simply Google's typical inability to managing their products coherently. (I'm looking at you gchat/meet/hangout, and at you Google Music with offers to create a family plan but oops nope not eligible with workspace accounts, and the reneging on the past promises of Google legacy workspace accounts.)

The more nefarious interpretation is that the value of comments in maps exceeds the cost of bad reviews to their business (businesses can't really opt out of maps) but, conversely, businesses could yank their apps from the app store if they got bad reviews. That would explain the difference in review policy for Google Workspace users.

When Google dropped their "don't be evil motto", they might have been thinking of craven interests like this.