Creating SharePoint App package without Visual Studio

Question

I have multiple ASP.NET applications running in IIS, which I would like to package and deploy to SharePoint 2013 server as apps.

The problem is, that these applications are developed by other companies, so I don't have access to the source codes, thus I cannot create a package of the application in Visual Studio.

1. Is it possible, to take (basically) any ASP.NET application and make it a SharePoint app and deploy it as Provider-hosted app? Please leave aside issues like authentication to SharePoint, branding...

2. Is it possible to create an app package without the Visual Studio? If I have 10-30 applications, it would be nice to make it automated.

The goal I am trying to achieve is to integrate existing applications into SharePoint, so it can be used as a portal, one point of access for other applications as well.

Thank you

Answer 1

You certainly can create app packages without Visual Studio. After all this packages are simple cab files (how to create cab file).

But I would suggest you to use Visual Studio to create at least one package to get correct package structure. After you do that you can easily generate your apps using Powershell for example. One thing to remember - each app should have unique ProductId so you need to generate it for each app.

EDIT: Thanks to Martin Bäckström that he pointed it out - app packages are not cab files they are zip files. They are actually packaged the same way as Excel and Word docs.