Office Web Apps 2013 in SharePoint 2013

Thanks to Lecerf and Ozcifci for contribute information about Web Apps 2013.

Office Web Apps 2013 is a server product to deliver a web based version of office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote). This product is not integrated in SharePoint solution and is not installed in the SharePoint farm. To us” this product your need to install this solution and create new Office Web Apps 2013 farm with all your Office Web Apps servers.
This farm can be used with SharePoint 2013 and Lync Server 2013. This service is used on Microsoft services like SkyDrive, SharePoint Online or office 365.

You can use your Office Web Apps 2013 farm integrated in SharePoint 2013, Outlook and Lync server. Office Web Apps 2013 needs internet explorer for benefit of all the functionalities of this product.

Report of browser compatibility check:

Architecture 


Office web apps 2013 architecture is based on web service exposition to use some office viewers in client browser. The topology of office web apps 2013 need to create farm for this service and design this farm for the need. This farm can be used by your different services like SharePoint and Lync just with one Office Web Apps 2013 farm.

Installation 

Process on your server installation, note that you cannot install office web app server on the same SharePoint 2013 server. If you try to install office web app on your SharePoint server you get an error message that you can’t install it. 

Download Office web apps 2013 server on Microsoft product download and get your product key. 

You need to install prerequisites like Microsoft SharePoint Server. 

Open Windows PowerShell and execute the following commands for Windows Server 2012 

Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Static-Content,Web-Performance,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Security,Web-Filtering,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-App-Dev,Web-Net-Ext45,Web-Asp-Net45,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Includes,InkandHandwritingServices

Just wait during the installation into PowerShell. If you have the warning message you need to restart your server.

On your windows server Windows Server 2012 just click on setup.exe to install your first office web app server.

Accept the terms and choose a file location.

Wait during the installation progress.

you want to deploy more office web apps server, you need to follow this documentation for all your servers. 

After your servers are installed, go to the configuration part. 

Configuration 

To use your Office Web Application Server you need to create new farm with your standalone server or all your servers. 

Note: your office web apps server must be integrated in your domain. 

Open PowerShell term and execute this commands with your parameters. 

Office Web Apps farm creation 

New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalUrl "https://server.yourdomain.com" -ExternalUrl "https://server.yourdomain.com" –CertificateName "OWA vlecerf Certificate" -EditingEnabled 

The parameter “EditingEnabled” is just needed if you want to use your Office Web Apps Servers with SharePoint 2013 in case of you want to give the possibility to your users to edit SharePoint 2013 file into the office web apps application. If you just want to use your office web apps farm with Lync for example, is not necessary to pass this parameter because Lync do not support file modification. 

Now, execute the PowerShell command,

If PowerShell asking that you want to use EditingEnabled choose “Y” 

Your office.

Your office web apps 2013 farm is now ready to use. 

You can check that just by open internet explorer browser and enter this url: https://”your internal url”/hosting/discovery

If you want to create Office Web Apps multi server farm you just need to create your farm on one of your server and after that add the others servers by PowerShell command 

New-OfficeWebAppsMachine –MachineToJoin « The server where you have created your farm »

Link your SharePoint 2013 farm with OWA Farm 

To use your SharePoint 2013 with OWA Farm you need to configure your SharePoint 2013 farm to link this with your OWA Farm. You can just do it by PowerShell command. You have to way for configuring that, it depend of your SharePoint 2013 Farm configuration: 

Your SharePoint 2013 Farm access use HTTP protocol 

Just open SharePoint Management PowerShell with elevated privileges and execute this command 

New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName « Your OWA Server » -AllowHTTP

We just need to modify the WOPI zone to HTTP, then execute this command: 

Set-SPWOPIZone –zone “internal-http”

Now we need to allow the SharePoint 2013 authentication to use http, just execute these commands to do that: 

$owa = Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig 

$owa.AllowOAuthOverHttp = $true 

$owa.update()

Your SharePoint 2013 Farm access use HTTPS protocol 

Just open SharePoint 2013 Management PowerShell with elevated privileges and execute this command 

New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName « Your OWA Server »

If you have communication problems between your SharePoint farm and OWA farm, just check your firewall accept the 80,443 and 806 ports. Your server must accept ICMP packets because when you launch the Binding command, the farm check the availability of OWA farm. 

The office web apps 2013 farm is now integrated with your SharePoint 2013 farm. You can try it just by open excel, work or PowerPoint document by documents library. 

Note: If you want to user OWA 2013 as default for opening document in your SharePoint, you need to disable the feature “open in client application” in your sites collection.

Bind your OWA Farm with Lync Server 2013 

Open Lync Server 2013 Topology Builder tool and add an Office web apps Servers in Shared Components directory. 

Enter some information’s like FQDN and discovery URL. 

Bind your OWA Farm with Exchange Server 2013 

Just open PowerShell term of Exchange product and execute this command: 

Set-OrganizationalConfig –WACDiscoveryEndPoint https://”Your OWA server name”/hosting/Discovery 

After that, you just need to configure your client or force your exchange server to use OWA for office files rendering. 

1.  Client Configuration changes

2. Exchange 2013 Configuration changes 

Open PowerShell term of outlook product and execute these commands: 

Set-OwaVirtualDirectory "IIS OWA Website name” -ForceWacViewingFirstOnPublicComputers $true -ForceWacViewingFirstOnPrivateComputers $true

Office Web Apps 2013 functionalities 

The office web apps 2013 in browser UI is the same as Office 2013. You have the ribbon system that permits you to use this different features. On OWA apps you do not have all desktop office 2013 functionalities. You have basics layout settings, View settings and insert panel for table, image or link.

Word Web App UI

PowerPoint Web App UI

Excel Web App UI

One Note SharePoint 2013 Integration

Remove OWA Farm in SharePoint 2013 Binding:

To remove the binding of OWA farm on your SharePoint 2013 farm, open the SharePoint PowerShell management console and execute this command: 


Remove-SPWOPIBinding –All:$true

Remove your OWA Farm or uninstall your farm 

If you want to remove your office web apps 2013 farm or uninstall this farm you must removing this binding on every products that you have bind with this farm. If you have bind your OWA with Lync, outlook or SharePoint you need to remove on all products after deleting OWA farm or uninstall of the farm.
To complete this first operation of unbinding some products you need to open PowerShell term of the product.

Remove SharePoint binding 
Remove-SPWOPIBinding –All:$true 
Remove Lync Binding (do not need PowerShell term)

You just need to open Lync Server topology builder and delete your OWA Farm in this tool.

Remove Exchange Server binding 
Set-OrganizationConfig –WACDiscoveryEndPoint

You just need to open Lync Server topology builder and delete your OWA Farm in this tool.
Remove Exchange Server binding 

Office Web Apps 2013 PowerShell Commands List

Command	Description
Get-OfficeWebAppsFarm	Returns details about the OfficeWebAppsFarm object that the current server is a member of.
Get-OfficeWebAppsHost	Returns the list of host domains that are on the Allow List for an Office Web Apps Server farm.
Get-OfficeWebAppsMachine	Returns details about the current server that is in an Office Web Apps Server farm.
New-OfficeWebAppsFarm	Creates a new Office Web Apps Server farm on the local computer.
New-OfficeWebAppsHost	Adds a host domain to the Allow List for an Office Web Apps Server farm.
New-OfficeWebAppsMachine	Adds the current server to an existing Office Web Apps Server farm.
Remove-OfficeWebAppsHost	Removes a host domain from the Allow List for an Office Web Apps Server farm.
Remove-OfficeWebAppsMachine	Removes the current server from the Office Web Apps Server farm.
Repair-OfficeWebAppsFarm	Removes all servers flagged as unhealthy from an Office Web Apps Server farm.
Set-OfficeWebAppsFarm	Configures the settings of an existing Office Web Apps Server farm.
Set-OfficeWebAppsMachine	Changes the settings of the current server that is in an Office Web Apps Server farm.