Office Web Applications - SharePoint 2013

THE OFFICE WEB APPLICATIONS FOR SHAREPOINT

Functionality Overview

Office web apps(OWA) is a browser-based add-on to the SharePoint 2013 farm, delivering Office desktop functionality at the server level. With Office Web Apps, users can open and edit Microsoft’s desktop Office products by using Word Web App, Excel Web App, PowerPoint Web App, and OneNote Web App. The Office Web Apps add-on delivers the same rich Microsoft Office environment that exists in the SkyDrive environment to your private SharePoint farms, with on-premises security and control. The user experience has also been enhanced for desktop computers, mobile phones, tablets, and any device supporting browser functionality.

Additional functionality for multiple SharePoint farms, Lync, exchange 2013, and file shares (via open-form URL)

New Office Web Apps functionality is not limited to a single instance of SharePoint 2013; it now supports multiple SharePoint 2013 farms, Lync 2013, Exchange 2013, and even the capability to open files from a URL. This represents a drastic shift in how the Office Web apps functions to provide its service to multiple applications.

Integrating OWA with Exchange 2013

Exchange Server 2013 leverages Office Web Apps 2013 to preview e-mail office file attachments. Office Web Apps also lends this functionality to the Exchange 2013 Outlook web Application.

Using Office Web Apps, you can work with the following file types in Exchange:

Ø  Word documents

Ø  Excel documents

Ø  PowerPoint documents

Integrating OWA with Lync 2013

Office Web Apps 2013 has also been extended to Lync 2013. This enables the standard file types in SharePoint 2013 to have the same functionality in Lync 2013. PowerPoint Broadcast has been removed from SharePoint 2013 and added to Lync 2013. Lync 2013 leverages Office Web Apps 2013 to deliver presentations via the PowerPoint Web App.

Note that Lync 2013 is the engine behind the PowerPoint Broadcast server while the Office Web Apps provides the viewer.

Licensing and Versions

Office Web Apps offers some significant changes from the previous version in the licensing arena.

There are 2 licenses in Office Web Apps this time around:

Ø  The default Office Web Apps mode is View-only, and it is provided free

Ø  The Other mode enabled both viewing and editing, and this mode must be licensed. Users must have the appropriate license, known as WacEdit, before they can edit in the browser.

New features in SharePoint OWA 2013 [Desktop Enhancements]

User Experience Improvements

Full desktop experience closer to the user via any modern browser

PowerPoint Broadcasting

The Broadcasting functionality is no longer part of SharePoint in any way and is instead integrated with Lync Server 2013.

Web App vs. Excel Services

FUNCIONALITY	EXCEL SERVICES	EXCEL WEB APP
Create or edit workbook in browser	No	Yes
Publish workbooks using external data	Yes	Yes, with limitations
Publish a single item via a web part	Yes	Yes
Refresh workbook data	Yes	Yes
Offers business-level intelligence Excel to use PowerPivot and slicers	Yes	No

Change Tracking

New to Office Web Apps 2013 is the capability to open a document that has Track Changes enabled. Not only can you open the document, but you can also edit the document and your changes will be tracked.

Comments

The Comments feature, available in both Word and PowerPoint, enables users to work collaboratively, annotating a document without changing the text, by adding comments or queries to a separate section of the original document.

Co-Authoring

Co-authoring in Office Web Apps is a handy feature that enables multiple authors to work in a single document simultaneously. This prevents people from getting locked out of the most current document or working on an outdated file version. In addition, the co-authoring functionality enables a single document to track all intended changes, preventing a loss of the last known changes.

Embedding

Embedding is a new feature to Office Web Apps. Previously, when you wanted to open or edit a document in SharePoint, you only had that control from a SharePoint document library. Now, with embedding, you can incorporate the Word Web App, the Excel Web App, and the OneNote Web App directly into the page.

Ink Support

Ink support, a feature that enables users to write and draw in documents using a finger, mouse, or stylus, has long been a part of the Microsoft Office suite. The latest version of Office Web Apps enables Ink elements to be viewed, created, and edited reliably in Microsoft Office Word and OneNote documents via the web browser.

Quick Preview

New to Office Web Apps 2013 is the capability to preview supported documents in a preview window directly from SharePoint 2013 search results. This enables users to quickly determine whether they have found the correct file.

Sharing a Document

SharePoint user can send a link for a document to another user, enabling the recipient to leverage Office Web Apps and preview that document. When sharing documents, you also have the option to specify whether the recipient has permission to edit the document, rather than just view it.

Office Web Apps URLs

Fortunately, users no longer need to work with such unwieldy URLs, as the new Office Web Apps 2013 URL format is greatly condensed. This enables users to easily share a URL directly from the browser.

Default Open Behavior for Documents

Office Web Apps 2013 offers farm and site collection administrator control over how a document is opened at the farm or site-collection level. By default, when OWA 2013 is made available to SharePoint 2013, it opens all Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote files in the browser, as opposed to the desktop client application.

Ø  Farm-level Document Control

Ø  Site Collections and Document Libraries

Mobile Device Support

Office Web Apps 2013 has been developed around the premise that today’s mobile workforce needs the same robust collaborative experience enjoyed by desktop users.

Office Web Apps allows a mobile user on a Windows Phone, iOS, or Android device to view and interact with documents. This functionality is automatically made available by the default install of OWA. It adds things such as touch support and some smarts such as extra zooms and handling of content that would exceed the screen’s real estate.

Ø  PowerPoint Changes

Ø  Enhanced User Experience

Ø  Technologies Used

Ø  Platform and Browser Compatibility