By: Toby McGrail Sr. Software Engineer

Introduction Sponsors What is the SharePoint 2013 App Store Where are the Apps Hosted? How are Apps and SharePoint Sites Related? Governance Choices for Apps? Governance Configure DNS Entries DNS Server Configuration DNS Example Verify the DNS Entry SSL Configuration Configure 2013 SharePoint Services Configure the Subscription Settings Service Configure the App Management Service Configure the App URL’s Creating the Corporate Catalog Configure App Settings Common Problems Questions?

My name is Toby McGrail and I have been a Senior SharePoint Administrator over the last three years however been deeply involved in SharePoint for 8 years and counting. Outside of SharePoint I have balanced lifestyle that includes my family, friends, and Fitness. Fitness and SharePoint are my passion. Over 20 years IT Experience

7:30 - 8:30 - Registration(Lobby) Breakfast (Sponsor Hall) 8:30 - 8:45 - Welcome 9: :15 – 1 st Sessions 10: :45 – 2 nd Sessions 11: :30 – Lunch (Sponsor Hall) 12:30 - 1: rd Sessions 2:00 - 3:15 – 4 th Sessions 3:30 - 4:45 – 5 th Sessions 5:00 - 5:30 - Closing & Giveaways Welcome to SharePoint Saturday Virginia Beach Jan 11, 2014

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The apps for SharePoint 2013 provides an exciting new method to deliver important data or custom functionality to a SharePoint site that is not an OOB Feature or Solution. An app for SharePoint is a small, easy-to-use, stand-alone app that solves a specific end-user or business requirements. Site owners can now discover and download apps for SharePoint from a public SharePoint Store or from their organization's internal App Catalog and install them on their SharePoint sites. In the past organizations had to spend Thousands of Dollars for this customization These apps for SharePoint integrate the best of the web with SharePoint They do not replace SharePoint features and solution packages, which customize or enhance SharePoint sites. Unlike features and solutions, which farm or site collection administrators have to install, apps for SharePoint are stand-alone applications that owners of sites can add to their SharePoint sites. The apps for SharePoint have a simple lifecycle - they can be installed, upgraded, and uninstalled by site owners. This provides a more enhanced End User Experience.

Where are apps for SharePoint hosted? Provider Hosted such as Rackspace, FPWeb or any External Hosting Company Hosted in the cloud (Windows Azure autohosted) Hosted in a SharePoint environment Several combinations of these options. Depending on the hosting option, the app can contain different elements and take advantage of different components. Illustration of hosting options for apps for SharePoint

Site owners can add apps for SharePoint to their sites. If an app contains SharePoint components, those components are stored in a subweb of the site that is automatically created when you install the app. Apps have their own, isolated URLs, which are separate from the URL for the site that contains the app. If the app is a Provider-hosted or Windows Azure autohosted app, the app components are stored in those locations.

Just like in any other SharePoint feature and solution Governance plays a key role for the success of the 2013 App Store. So lets look at the things you really need to think about before deploying any Apps to the App Store –Who has access to the Apps? –Who can install Apps? –How is Security handled in Apps? –Deployment of the Apps –App Requests How are they handled? Who can request an App Before you even think about Deploying the App Store plan out your Implementation.

Governance choices for apps for SharePoint

Configure DNS entries: Lets start with a little background on why its Important –Each installation of an app has a unique URL in your environment. You decide the template for that URL (by determining a domain name and an app prefix), and then the app URLs are automatically generated based on the specific template –Paths for the apps are based on the URL for the site in the location where they are installed. –When you install an app to a site, a SubWeb of that site is created to host the app content. The SubWeb for the app is hierarchically below the site collection, but has an isolated unique host header instead of being under the site’s URL. –It is HIGHLY recommended to configure a separate DNS for your apps. The difference in domain names provides a layer of isolation for the apps. The use of a different domain name from the SharePoint sites prevents cross- site scripting between the apps and sites and unauthorized access to users’ data. –Now lets Configure the DNS

Our first step will be to create the wildcard domain that we will be using to host our app –Start DNS Manager from Administrative Tools. Right click in the details pane and select “New Alias (CNAME)".

In the “New Resource Record” enter the *.apps in “Alias name” option. ‘*’ is used to create a wild card or catch all domain. Select “Browse” and Navigate to the fully qualified parent domain which is “tobymcgrail.com” in our case. Select OK. Review the resource record and select OK to create this record

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Next, lets verify our wild card domain. Start Powershell or a command prompt and ping to apps.tobymcgrail.com(whatever you have set it here. This should be successful.

Please rememeber if you are using SSL, please refer to Technet article for configuration us/library/fp161236(v=office.15) for more information on SSL configuration. us/library/fp161236(v=office.15)

Currently the 2013 App Store will not work with the Redirect if you use Host Headers so you will need to remove your host headers. If you do not you will see 404 Errors when trying to access the page.

Enable Services on the server: –Go to “Central Administration –> System Settings –> Manage Services on server” and ensure that the “App Management Service” and “Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service” services are started and Running

It is highly suggested that you automate this process with my best friend Mr. Powershell! You can do so by running the following commands in the SharePoint 2013 Management Shell (PowerShell) – examples below assume you are using the VM downloaded through my blog post: –$account = Get-SPManagedAccount “ ” Where: is the name of the Farm administrators account in the SharePoint farm Example: $account = Get-SPManagedAccount “sp_farm” –$appPoolSubSvc = New-SPServiceApplicationPool -Name SettingsServiceAppPool - Account $account –$appSubSvc = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication –ApplicationPool $appPoolSubSvc –Name SettingsServiceApp –DatabaseName Where: is the name that you’d like to give to the new Subscription Settings Service database that the above command will create Example: $appSubSvc = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication – ApplicationPool $appPoolSubSvc –Name SettingsServiceApp –DatabaseName App_SubscriptionSettingsService –$proxySubSvc = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplicationProxy –ServiceApplication $appSubSvc

Again it’s the Caped Crusader “Powershell Man” to the Rescue. –$account = Get-SPManagedAccount “ ” Where: is the name of the Farm administrators account in the SharePoint farm Example: $account = Get-SPManagedAccount “sp_farm” –$appPoolAppSvc = New-SPServiceApplicationPool -Name TobyAppsSrvAppPool -Account $account –$appAppSvc = New-SPAppManagementServiceApplication - ApplicationPool $appPoolAppSvc -Name TobyServiceApp - DatabaseName Where: is the name that you’d like to give to the new App Management Service database that the above command will create Example: $appSubSvc = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication – ApplicationPool $appPoolSubSvc –Name SettingsServiceApp – DatabaseName App_AppManagmentService –$proxyAppSvc = New-SPAppManagementServiceApplicationProxy - ServiceApplication $appAppSvc

Now lets head back to Central Administration and check out the Service Applications.

Now Lets Head back to Central Admin to configure the App Url’s First we need to browse to “Central Administration > Apps > Configure App URLs” and enter the wildcard CNAME entry that you created above along with an app as seen here:

Now its time to create a “Corporate Catalog” site that we will use in configuration App Store. The app catalog site contains catalogs for apps for SharePoint and Office. You can use this site to make apps available to end users if they are no allowed to add apps on their own. Select “Create a new app catalog site” option and select “OK”. You will see “Create App Catalog” screen. Specify the following information and select OK. It might take a while so stay patient. Title and Description: App Catalog Web Site Address: Primary Site Collection Administrator SPTOBY\SPADMIN End Users: Everyone Quote Template: Nonehttp://tobymcgrail.com:2020/sites/apps

First we will go to Central Admin and click on the quick launch on Apps. Select App Management –> Manage App Catalog and verify that the App Catalog Site we created is set correctly. Select the “Apps” link in Quick Launch again. Select “Configure App URLs. Select SharePoint and Office Store –> Configure Store Settings. If you don’t want your end users to be able to get apps from the SharePoint store, select “No”. In a Enteprise level Production Environment its notthe best idea to allow end-users install the apps. They can request the apps and admins can install it. Select OK.

Sorry, apps are turned off. If you know who runs the server, tell them to turn on the App Management Shared Service This error can happen when incorrect configuration of service applications mentioned in the article. Solution to this problem is to remove the existing App Management Service application and creating it using SharePoint 2013 Management Shell. You may also be missing the App Domain and App Prefix settings in the “Configure App URLs page”. Double to check to see if you hava correct URL for apps using the information provided above. The Corporate Curated Gallery Settings feature is not activated on current web application First place tocheck is by activating the CorporateCuratedGallerySettings feature. Enable-SPFeature -Identity "CorporateCuratedGallerySettings” -url " ” Corporate Catalog has not been created for the current Web application You may notice this error in the SharePoint log files. This can be resolved by creating the App Catalog site.

Do you have any issues that you have seen that we have not covered My Blog – References – – – Contact Information: –Toby McGrail –