Matt Hunt, business development manager at enterprise app developer Apadmi, recently weighed in on how to develop a successful enterprise app. And you know what? We really liked his list of ten tips for creating a useful and successful enterprise app.

In his list, Hunt covered (nearly) all the right things: everything from defining the purpose of the app to selecting the right technology and testing extensively. What Hunt unfortunately missed are a few of the other key considerations that fall somewhat outside the scope of app development itself.

Although we certainly recommend giving Hunt’s tips a read, we thought we’d give a few of our own recommendations a go. Here’s how we’d round off the (now thirteen) tips for creating a useful and successful enterprise app:

Prepare for deployment and enrollment

How are you going to deploy your app and enroll users? Apps don’t exist in a vacuum, and you’re not going to see the success you’d like if you don’t take this into consideration. Do you have an enterprise app store already? If not, it may be time to think about getting one, as releasing an app into a public app store is a good way to get lost in the mix.

Enrollment in the app store is equally as important. A few enrollment options we like to use? Self-service enrollment, where you send out an email to all users, and they can self register; manually adding users (just what it sounds like); AD or LDAP integration, a seamless process; and API integration, if you’d prefer something more transparent. 

Find a platform for tracking and managing analytics

The app itself is only half the story. Think about how you’re going to track the impact of your app after it’s released. We’re at a point where “just having an app” isn’t enough. Find a platform that will help you track the stuff behind the scenes (we know a thing or two about that).

You need to know things like how often your app is being used, how often it crashes, what types of actions and transactions are being performed within your app, and whether or not your app is performant. Having an app is one thing, but tracking analytics is how you build a great app and find true success.

Don’t forget about ROI 

We know, we know: ROI is something that companies should already be tracking as it relates to enterprise apps. The trouble is, many aren’t. Those analytics we just mentioned above will take you to the next step and tell you whether or not your app is doing what it’s supposed to do—saving you money, making you money, or increasing productivity. Once again, just having an app isn’t enough. It’s time to start thinking about how that app is impacting your business.

App development is obviously an important stage of the enterprise app process, but if you ask is, it’s really only half the picture. A brilliantly developed app means little without a proper support structure to back it up, and that support structure also helps you track ROI—an important next step for enterprise users.

When you’re developing a mobile app, be sure to take the steps after development into consideration. Are analytics and deployment as sexy as development? Probably not (although we wish they were)—but they’re still a key piece of the puzzle.