Outlook Web App in SharePoint Online

Many SharePoint Online customers would like to be able to see Exchange Online data on their SharePoint Online pages (e.g  their inbox or their calendar). First thought would be to use the built-in Outlook Web App Web Parts.

However – if you read the “Outlook Web App Web Parts” paragraph in the Exchange Online Service Description p. 46, you’ll learn that

Exchange Online supports Outlook Web App Web Parts via the PageViewer control in Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft SharePoint Server, or via manually configured URLs. Built-in SharePoint OWA Web Part controls will not work against Exchange Online

Here is how you can display your Exchange Online data in SharePoint Online.

Step 1: Add the “Page Viewer” web part on a page

  1. Go to the page you want to add the web part to
  2. In the ribbon click Edit tab > Insert  tab > More Web Parts button
  3. In the the web part adder select the Media and Content  category > Page Viewer  web part > Add button

 

Step 2: View Outlook Web App segments in the web part

  1. Click open the tool pane in the new Page Viewer web part
  2. Type an URL like the following
    https://db3prd0206.outlook.com/owa/?exsvurl=1\&cmd=contents
    in the Link text box, where the highlighted part must be your own mailserver (see notes below)
  3. Your inbox is now available on your SharePoint Online page

Notes

  • To determine your server name
    • Go to your Office 365 portal home page here: https://portal.microsoftonline.com/IWDefault.aspx 
    • Then click on “Outlook” at the top middle of the page. This brings you to your personal Outlook Web App where you can determine your server name to help build out your preferred URL to plug into the “Page Viewer” web part.
  • The URL of Outlook Web App in Exchange Online must have an exsvurl=1 in the webpart URL in order to make the web part work (https://db3prd0206.outlook.com/owa/?exsvurl=1\&cmd=contents)
  • UPDATE June 6, 2012
    if the above approach results in your Page Viewer web part displaying "This content cannot be displayed in a frame", and you must log into OWA in another browser window in order to make the Page Viewer web part display the desired content, you can try this URL instead:
    https://www.outlook.com/owa/?exsvurl=1\&cmd=contents\&realm=\<tenantid>.onmicrosoft.com
    where <tenantid> is the name of your tenant, e.g. mso365wiz.

See also