[Apps] How to create an App Catalog per PWA

Best Practices, Implementation, Management, Office 365, Project Online, Tricks, Updates 3 comments

It is now finally possible to add, remove and manage apps for each “Site Collection” in SharePoint Online. As each Project Online “PWA” is its own “Site Collection”, this now means that you can give the full app control to your PMO and/or PWA administrator. In summary it means that each project portal (PWA) gets their own blank catalog for apps that should be allowed and available to the specific PWA users. I would highly recommended using this approach in cases where you have test/dev, pre-production and production PWAs.

Here are the basic steps to get your new PWA app catalog up and running:

Step 1: Connect to SharePoint Online as an Administrator (using PowerShell)

$adminUPN="<the full email address of a SharePoint administrator account, example: jdoe@contosotoycompany.onmicrosoft.com>"
$orgName="<name of your Office 365 organization, example: contosotoycompany>"
$userCredential = Get-Credential -UserName $adminUPN -Message "Type the password."
Connect-SPOService -Url https://365projectum-admin.sharepoint.com -Credential $userCredential

Step 2: Allow the PWA Site Collection to get its own App Catalog

Add-SPOSiteCollectionAppCatalog -Site URL-TO-TARGET-SITE-COLLECTION

Step 3: Find you PWA App Catalog by navigating to your PWA “Site Contents” area

Step 4: Upload your apps and add-ins to your newly created catalog and they will be ready for deployment within the PWA Site Collection.

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To learn more about this update read the official guide here:

Manage the Site Collection App Catalog (Link)

Use the Site Collection App Catalog to make custom business apps available for your SharePoint Online site collection.As a SharePoint Online tenant administrator or tenant app catalog administrator you can enable a Site Collection owner to use the Site Collection App Catalog to deploy SharePoint Framework components to their Site Collection. Grant permission for a Site Collection owner to do this by adding their Site Collection to a list of allowed sites. You must use Microsoft PowerShell to add or remove sites from the allowed sites list.Removing a site from the list of allowed sites prevents new components from being added and any previously installed components from executing their code.

As a SharePoint Online site collection owner, after adding your site to the allowed list and enabling the Site Collection App Catalog feature on your site, you can use it to upload any custom SharePoint Framework components that you or your organization develop. Uploading custom components isn’t much more complicated than uploading a document to a library and setting some properties. You can use the Site Collection App Catalog to install custom components on your sites for users (also called app deployment).

If you upload a component marked for Tenant-Scoped deployment it will be available for all sub-sites of the target site collection without needing to be installed first.

For information about building modern Web Parts using the SharePoint Framework, see Overview of the SharePoint Framework.

Your tenant administrator must add your site to the allowed list before the Site Collection App Catalog feature is available. Users with the Manage Web Site permission are then able to upload SharePoint Framework components to the Site Collection App Catalog and make them available to the site by deploying and installing them.

When a component exists in both the tenant’s app catalog and the Site Collection App Catalog the version in the Site Collection App Catalog will take precedence whether it is an older or newer version.

Step 1: Add a Site Collection to the allow list

The first step is to add the Site Collection to the tenant’s allow list if it hasn’t already been added. Adding a Site Collection to the list enables the Site Collection App Catalog feature on the site, and also authorizes its use. In the future you can remove a site from the list to disable the feature.

  1. Follow the instructions in Connect to SharePoint Online PowerShell.
  2. Run the following command at the SharePoint Online Management Shell command prompt:Add-SPOSiteCollectionAppCatalog -Site URL-TO-TARGET-SITE-COLLECTION

Step 2: Add SharePoint Framework components to the Site Collection App Catalog

To find the Site Collection App Catalog after it’s been created, go to the Site Contents page of your site. You will see the Apps for SharePoint document library available, this is your Site Collection App Catalog.

Site Collection App Catalog_C3_20171029145948

  1. Select New and browse to the app you want upload, or drag the app into the library.SPO App catalog SharePoint with New button highlighted
  2. You’re prompted to trust the app and deploy it. If you don’t deploy the app right now you can do this later from the Ribbon menu.Trust and deploy package dialog_C3_2017102916458
  3. Optional: To help identify and use the app later right-click the app and click Properties.Apps for SharePoint apps catalog with app selected
  4. In the properties dialog form, you can change the Name for the app and enter optional information like a description, images, category, publisher, and support URL. Follow the instructions on the screen for details like image size.
  5. Make sure the Enabled check box is selected so that the app can be installed in the site.
  6. If it appears, in the Hosting Licenses box, specify the number of licenses you think you will need.
  7. Select Save.

Step 3: Install an app for users

To make any Web Parts or App Parts in the app you are using available to page authors the app must be installed in the site after uploading it.

You can deploy custom SharePoint Framework componentsusing the Site Collection App Catalog. Follow the steps in Add an app to a site to install your component on your site after it is deployed from the Site Collection App Catalog.

Remove an app from the App Catalog

If you no longer want a specific component to be available for users to install, you can remove it from the app catalog. Any instances of the component that have already been added to sites by users will remain, but the component will no longer be available for users to add to additional sites.

  1. On the App Catalog site, select the Apps for SharePoint list.
  2. Right-click the component that you want to remove and click Delete.
  3. In the dialog box, click OK to confirm that you want to send the item to the site Recycle Bin.
Remove a Site Collection from the allow list

Removing a Site Collection from the allow list will cause several things to happen:

  • Users will no longer be able to add new SharePoint Framework components to the Site Collection App Catalog.
  • Components in use that are provided by items in the Site Collection App Catalog will stop working.
  1. Follow the instructions to Connect to SharePoint Online PowerShell.
  2. Run the following command at the SharePoint Online Management Shell command prompt:Remove-SPOSiteCollectionAppCatalog -Site URL-TO-TARGET-SITE-COLLECTION

3 comments

  1. I downloaded the latest copy of SharePoint Online Management Shell. Ran the scripts, but got an “Unknown Error” when running the Add-SPOSiteCollectionAppCatalog commandlet.

    Reply

  2. Add-SPOSiteCollectionAppCatalog : Unknown Error
    At line:1 char:1
    + Add-SPOSiteCollectionAppCatalog -Site https://*********.sharepoint.co …
    + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Add-SPOSiteCollectionAppCatalog], ServerException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.ServerException,Microsoft.Online.SharePoint.PowerShell.AddSi
    teCollectionAppCatalog

    Reply

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