Creating and configuring an App Catalog site in SharePoint 2016

In this post we discuss about the App Catalog site in SharePoint 2016. We also see the steps required for creating and configuring an app catalog site.

Overview

 An app catalog site is used to store the SharePoint add-ins and Office add-ins for your organization’s internal use. Apps\Add-ins stored in the app catalog will be available for users to install when they browse apps under the From Your Organization filter on the Site Contents page.

Pre-requisites

1) SharePoint Apps environment for must be properly configured. You can find the detailed steps to configure environment for SharePoint Apps here.

2) You must login with the farm administrator account in order to configure the app catalog.

Steps 

Following are the steps for creating the app catalog site:

Go to Central Admin->Apps->Manage App Catalog.

Select the "Create a new app catalog site" option and click OK button to continue.

Provide the Site Name, Site Url, and Site Admin details. Click OK to create the site.

The site will be created and the summary will be displayed as follows

Open the newly created site for App Catalog.

Click on Apps for SharePoint link. You will notice that it is a library where you can upload your add-ins or third party add-ins. Once uploaded these add-ins will be available through out the organization and user can install them based their access.

 App Catalog is mandatory for deploying your custom add-ins into production environment. You may use a developer site for testing and debugging your custom add-ins in development environment. Hope this post was helpful!