SharePoint 2013 and
legacy web apps
How to use the Provider-Hosted App Model to make them available in
SharePoint 2013 Office 365 Sites
Hi Everyone!

Name: Paul Aldigé Katz

Email: pkatz@limeleap.com
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Twitter Handle: @napkatz
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Company: LimeLeap (http://www.limeleap.com)
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=2708087
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Job Title: Chief Software Architect
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Hobbies: Tennis, Windows Phone Development (in my copious amount of free time)
And I’m a new dad! Eli gave me the day off
SharePoint’s New App Model

To highlight the new app model briefly, Microsoft has:

Completely separated custom server-side code from SharePoint in order
to protect SharePoint’s core code from extra resource intensive
processing. Unlike web parts, no server-side app code runs on SharePoint’s
server.
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In return, Microsoft has made a HUGE investment in providing servicebased methods for exposing SharePoint’s object library to code running on
other servers.
SharePoint’s New App Model

From a GUI perspective, apps appear:

Within iFrames inside of SharePoint pages using App Parts OR

As full web sites running on a different server using SharePoint’s available client-side
libraries and web services to bring in SharePoint’s design theme.
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In either case, your app’s server-side code does not run in SharePoint

Your app’s server-side code can either run in an auto-hosted Azure space,
or on your own server infrastructure, via the provider-hosted app model.

For the purposes of this presentation, we’ll focus on the latter
Why choose the Provider-Hosted hosting
method?

Your app might need to run behind a corporate firewall; for whatever reason,
hosting it in the cloud is a no-no.

Your app’s server-side code is PHP, JSP, etc…

SharePoint 2013 is just one of many clients for your web application

You just like the control of directly running your own app
I’ll show you how we turned this:
Into that:
Assumptions for this presentation

You have a SharePoint 2013 Office 365 Developer Site:

Free 30 Day Trial Available, $100 a year afterward

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp179924.aspx
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Free for MSDN Premium and Ultimate Subscribers
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Can be provisioned from Office 365 E1 or E3 plans
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You have Visual Studio 2012 Professional or higher installed, and Microsoft
Office Developer Tools for Visual Studio 2012

You have at least Visual Studio 2010 or higher to upgrade the codebase of your
existing web application
Assumptions for this presentation

Your existing web application:
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is at least a .NET 4.0 web application

Uses some form of internal users database table to manage accounts

We’ll be syncing this later with the Office 365 account
SharePoint Site Setup
Some initial setup steps to do on your SharePoint site
Create an App Catalog Site

Click Admin on the top menu and then click
SharePoint in the dropdown

Click apps on the right sidebar

Click App Catalog under apps. SharePoint will
guide you though creating your App Catalog
Site if you don’t already have one
Use appregnew.aspx to create a client
secret based relationship with your app
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<Your SharePoint Site>/_layouts/15/appregnew.aspx
Use appregnew.aspx to create a client
secret based relationship with your app

This method does not support multi-tenant uses of your app
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Use the Microsoft Seller Dashboard if you want to “sell” your app to multiple
SharePoint installations

Your app Domain will need to include a specific port number if it won’t be
running on a standard SSL port.

Make sure you write down the information created. It will be necessary when
packaging your app.
Building Your App In Visual Studio 2012
How to build your on-premise app
Create your app in VS2012 - I
Specify your SharePoint
2013 site
Make sure your select
“Provider-hosted” for
where you want to host
your app.
Create your app in VS2012- II
Specify Use client secret
when setting up
authentication
Create your app in VS2012- III
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Your new solution contains two projects:
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The SharePoint 2013 App project
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A matching web application project that Visual Studio assumes will be your
provider hosted app. For the purposes of this walkthrough you can ignore it.
In your appManifest.xml file, specify the
start page of your app
Then update the code of your
AppManifest.xml file to include your client
ID.
Add an app part to embed an interface
inside a SharePoint page
Now Publish your app to create an .app
file.
You’ll be asked for your
Client ID and Secret. Enter
them in the wizard.
Also, specify the website
your app will be hosted
it’s OK to specify an SSL
address that doesn’t exist.
For our method of
deployment, it doesn’t
matter
Publish your app to SharePoint
Make it available for your site collections
Upload your app file to the SharePoint
developer site.

Go to your App Catalog Site, and click the Distribute apps for SharePoint tile
Upload your app file

Click new app, and upload the
.app file the Visual Studio
publishing tool created.

After the upload, add any
additional information for your
catalog entry:
We’re half done!!!
Now we need to make your web application talk to SharePoint
Web Application Updates
Updates you can make
Install the SharePoint Server 2013 Client
Components SDK

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35585
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Install it on the web server that will be hosting your provider-hosted app

Also, install it on any development workstations that do not have Visual
Studio 2012 installed, but will be used to update the web application’s code.
Also install Microsoft Identity Foundation
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http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=17331
In your Visual Studio web project, add..
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
TokenHelper.vb or TokenHelper.cs
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Can be cut and pasted from the Visual Studio 2012 app project.
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Should also be available online
Also add the following references
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Microsoft.IdentityModel – Set Copy Local to true
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Microsoft.IdentityModel.Extensions – Set Copy Local to true
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Microsoft.SharePoint.Client – Set Copy Local to true
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Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Runtime – Set Copy Local to true
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System.IdentityModel
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System.Web.Extensions
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System.ServiceModel

System.Web.Extensions
Add your ClientId and ClientSecret to
the web.config file of your application

The default TokenHelper code reads these

Now that both your SharePoint App and your Web Application have them,
there is a basis for them to trust each other!
On the start page of your app,
determine the user’s identity
Leverage this against your user’s table to determine the user accessing your site
Feel free to alter TokenHelper…

For one of our apps, we made a version that can be instantiated, with the
client settings then loaded in from a database.
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This approach allowed for multiple SharePoint apps to work off the same web
application.

Update reference code is attached to this slide.
You should now have a fully
authenticated SharePoint 2013 app!
Although, it looks nothing like SharePoint probably…
Use the Chrome Control
Bring a bit of SharePoint 2013 into your app
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp179916.aspx
The Chrome Control
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
Essentially, the Chrome Control uses JavaScript to:
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load in the style sheet from your SharePoint site
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Integrate a top navigation bar you can customize.
For more info: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp179916.aspx
Update your web application’s GUI Code

Minimize how your application’s style sheet interferes with SharePoint’s style
sheet.

Use my ThemeHelper class to bring SharePoint colors into your style sheets
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
http://go.limeleap.com/community/bid/287707/How-to-Easily-Bring-SharePoint-2013Theme-Colors-Into-Your-Apps

This is a HUGE timesaver if it can be assumed your App will have Manage rights for the
SharePoint site
If Your Have More Time….

Adopt SharePoint styles instead of using your web application’s styles so that your
application’s design changes properly when an end-user changes their SharePoint theme.
feel.
See if the overall layout of your web application fits SharePoint’s Modern UI look and
Let’s dive into some code!
A look at how Authentication is working, the Chrome Control, and
ThemeHelper!
Summary

It doesn’t take long to get a legacy .NET application connected to a
SharePoint 2013 Office 365 site, complete with seamless authentication

You can enjoy the relative inexpensiveness and availability of a SharePoint
2013 Office 365 site, while pulling in legacy applications hosted elsewhere
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
The price for each Office 365 E1 user is only $8.00 a month, and also includes
Hosted Email, Office Web Apps, Lync, Skydrive Pro
We really haven’t touched the surface of what SharePoint apps can actually
do with the SharePoint object model. All we did was authenticate, but there’s
tons more available via the SharePoint.Client library