Settings/configuration for a provider-hosted app running on Azure

Question

I have a provider-hosted app running in Azure and the corresponding SharePoint app with an endpoint pointing to the Azure site. The app is responsible for parsing an atom feed from a third site and placing it into a SharePoint list. this all works perfectly so far. The only problem is that I have to either put the configuration settings into a SharePoint list manually of fill out a form each time I run the app to "tell it" where to get the atom feed from.

I have tried to search for help but I cannot find the best way to solve this problem.

Basically, I want to be able to configure the app when I'm installing it and keep the settings on the SharePoint side as I would like to be able to call the app from multiple site collections.

Update: Just to clear up some confusion, and ambiguity on my part. I would like it so that each user/admin that installs the app for their site collection can fill in the above details on installation and maybe even change them later(but I'll leave that for later). So the fact that a form needs to be filled out is fine, just not every time the app runs. Hope this makes my question clearer

What would be the best way to do this.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Perhaps you can ask the user on the first startup for this configuration settings. You can select the List in SharePoint (where you stored the settings) if there is no entry in this list. the Settings will be asked from the user.

Otherwise you can take the stored setting from the list.

I think this will be a good solution.

I think on a installation process it's not possible to interact with the user.

Answer 2

If you app's configuration is in the app web, then you will need to code an App Installing event receiver to populate the configuration store.

Personally, I would store the configuration outside of the app. (Perhaps web.config of the provider-hosted app or a database.)