How to create a SharePoint site collection app catalog

In this guide, we will cover how to create a site collection app catalog to deploy the DocRead SharePoint app.

Why a site collection app catalog?

We recommend installing the DocRead SharePoint app on the site collection that holds the content you plan to target with DocRead (instead of making it available on your entire SharePoint farm). This will help you control who and how DocRead is used in your organisation.

To set up DocRead on your site collection, first make sure it has an App catalog. This guide will show you how to install the App catalog where you’ll add the DocRead app

For more information on Site Collection App catalogs, have a look at this Microsoft Learn article.

If the site collection already has an App catalog you can skip these instructions.

Step-by-step guide

You need to be a Site Collection Administrator on both the tenant-level App catalog and the target Site Collection in order to complete these instructions.

Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn’t yet provided a way to create an site collection app catalog via the SharePoint user interface, so we need to create it via PowerShell (PS). The good news is that you only need 2 PS commands to complete the task.

Download and Install the SharePoint Online Management Shell on your local PC (if you don’t already have it)
- Download SharePoint Online Management Shell from the Official Microsoft Download Center
- Install it on your local PC.
Open the SharePoint online management.
Connect to the admin site in your SharePoint farm by running the following command:
```
 Connect-SPOService -url https://[tenant]-admin.sharepoint.com
```
Replace the [tenant] section of the URL with your tenant name. E.G if your tenant name is “Contoso” the URL would be: https://contoso-admin.sharepoint.com
Create the site catalog
```
 Add-SPOSiteCollectionAppCatalog -Site [site URL]
```
Replace the “[site URL]” with the URL of the site where you want to install the app catalog (the site where you will be installing the DocRead SharePoint App). E.G if the site url is “https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/marketing” the command will be “Add-SPOSiteCollectionAppCatalog -Site https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/marketing”
To check that the App catalog was created navigate to the “Site Contents” page on your SharePoint site and check that the “Apps for SharePoint” is listed.