Get started with mail apps for Outlook 2013 and EWS in Exchange 2013

Mail apps provide a new way for you to add information to Outlook. Mail apps use standard web technologies to extend Outlook.

Your mail app can interact with an Exchange Server 2013 server to provide a rich experience to your users. To make it easier for you to use EWS from your app, the mail apps for Outlook JavaScript API provides a method for making asynchronous requests to EWS.

Visual Studio 2012 provides built-in tools for building and deploying mail apps. You don't have to use Visual Studio, however. You can use a simple text editor to create a mail app for Outlook.

If you’re using Visual Studio, you will need the following:

• Visual Studio 2012

• Apps for Office project templates

• Exchange Server 2013

If you’re using a text editor, you'll need access to the following:

• A server running Exchange 2013.

• A web server that can be reached by the Exchange server and that is configured to send and receive HTTPS.

• A web browser, such as Internet Explorer 9, that can display HTML5 documents.

• A directory for the manifest file that you can access from the computer where you’re running your web browser.

For an example that shows you how to create a mail app by using a text editor, see How to: Create your first mail app for Outlook by using a text editor.

Mail apps for Outlook are designed to take advantage of your web programming skills to create a new experience for your customers. You can use standard web technologies to create apps that interact with email messages and appointments that display information from the Exchange server, or that can integrate the email client with information from any web service. To create a mail app that uses EWS, you'll need to be familiar with the technologies listed in the following table.

To help you get started using EWS with your mail apps, the following is a simple example that requests the subject of the current message from the Exchange server. You can build on the information that you learn here to create your own mail app that works with EWS.

Step 1: Create a mail app for Outlook by using Visual Studio

Step 2: Add the JavaScript code for the mail app

function getSoapEnvelope(request) {
    // Wrap an EWS request in a SOAP envelope.
    var result =

    '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>' +
    '<soap:Envelope xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"' +
    '               xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"' +
    '               xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"' +
    '               xmlns:t="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types">' +
    '  <soap:Header>' +
    '    <RequestServerVersion xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/types" soap:mustUnderstand="0" />' +
    '  </soap:Header>' +
    '  <soap:Body>' +

    request +

    '  </soap:Body>' +
    '</soap:Envelope>';

    return result;
}

function getSubjectRequest(id) {
    // Return a GetItem EWS operation request for the subject of the specified item. 
    var result =

 '    <GetItem xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/services/2006/messages">' +
 '      <ItemShape>' +
 '        <t:BaseShape>IdOnly</t:BaseShape>' +
 '        <t:AdditionalProperties>' +
 '            <t:FieldURI FieldURI="item:Subject"/>' +
 '        </t:AdditionalProperties>' +
 '      </ItemShape>' +
 '      <ItemIds><t:ItemId Id="' + id + '"/></ItemIds>' +
 '    </GetItem>';

    return result;
}

// Send an EWS request for the message's subject.
function sendRequest() {
    // Create a local variable that contains the mailbox.
    var mailbox = Office.context.mailbox;
    var request = getSubjectRequest(mailbox.item.itemId);
    var envelope = getSoapEnvelope(request);

    mailbox.makeEwsRequestAsync(envelope, callback);
}

// Function called when the EWS request is complete.
function callback(asyncResult) {
    var response = asyncResult.value;
    var context = asyncResult.context;

    // Process the returned response here.
    var responseSpan = document.getElementById("response");
    responseSpan.innerText = response;
}

Step 3: Add the UI for the mail app

<h1>EWS request</h1>
<input type="button" value="Make EWS request" onclick="sendRequest()" />
<div style="overflow:scroll; height: 100px;">
   <span id="response" />
</div>

Step 4: Change the manifest.xml file to enable web service requests

Step 5: Deploy and run the mail app

More ideas for mail apps

Read the articles listed in the following table to learn more about EWS and mail apps.

• Web services in Exchange 2013

• New features in EWS in Exchange 2013

• EWS wsdl.exe autogenerated reference for Exchange 2013