Configure Office Web apps server with SharePoint 2013

This article describes the procedure to connect the Office web app server with production environment. Unlike Office web app server 2010, the new Office web apps farm can serve multiple SharePoint 2013 farms plus Lync 2013 and Exchange 2013.This document will guide you in both cases whether you wanted to use Office Web Apps server with single SharePoint 2013 farm or Multiple Farms.

If you wanted to connect the Office Web Apps server with new SharePoint 2013 farm without disconnecting from previous SharePoint 2013 farm then follow the steps mentioned in “Procedure 1” or “Procedure 2” according to your requirements.

If you wanted to connect the Office Web App farm with only one SharePoint 2013 farm then first discounted the previous SharePoint 2013 farm by following the steps mentioned in “Procedure 3”. After disconnecting the Office Web Apps from previously connected farm, follow the steps mentioned in “Procedure 1” or “Procedure 2” according to your requirements.

Configure SharePoint to use Office Web Apps server

Choose one of the following sections depending on whether you want to use HTTP or HTTPS.

Procedure 1: Configuration using HTTP

Our Office Web Apps server is configured to allow HTTP. So, there is no need for any configuration on Office Web Apps server. There will be following steps to be perform on SharePoint 2013 server.

1.       Run SharePoint 2013 Management Shell with Administrator privileges.

2.       Create the binding between Office Web Apps server and SharePoint 2013 sever by running following PowerShell command.

New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName <WacServerName> -AllowHTTP

<WacServerName> is the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the URL that you set for the internal URL

3.       View the WOPI zone for the SharePoint binding by the following PowerShell command.

Get-SPWOPIZone

The WOPI zone displayed by this command should be internal-http. If it’s displayed correctly, skip the next step. If it isn’t, see the next step.

4.       Change the WOPI zone to internal-http by following PowerShell command.

Set-SPWOPIZone –zone “internal-http”

5.       You can verify that the new zone is now internal-http by running Get-SPWOPIZone again.

6.       You need to set AllowOAuthOverHttp to True. Otherwise Office Web Apps won’t work. You can check the current status by running the following command.

              (Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).AllowOAuthOverHttp 

      If this command returns FALSE run the following commands.

               $config = (Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig)

      $config.AllowOAuthOverHttp = $true

$config.Update()

7.       Run the following command again to verify that the AllowOAuthOverHttp setting is now set to True.

(Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).AllowOAuthOverHttp

8.       Verify that Office Web App is working. In SharePoint 2013, make sure you’re not logged on as System Account because you won’t be able to edit or view the documents with Office Web Apps. Go to a SharePoint 2013 document library that contains Office documents and view a Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or OneNote file. The document should open in a browser that displays the file by using Office Web Apps.

Procedure 2: Configuration using HTTPS

As our Office Web Apps server is configured with HTTP, we have to reinstall the Office Web Apps. After installation open windows PowerShell and run the following command.

New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalUrl "https://server.contoso.com" -ExternalUrl "https://wacweb01.contoso.com" -CertificateName "OfficeWebApps Certificate" –EditingEnabled

·         InternalURL is the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the server that runs Office Web Apps Server, such as http://servername.contoso.com.

·         ExternalURL is the FQDN that can be accessed on the Internet. This parameter is required if you wanted to allow external users to access Office Web Apps Server.

·         CertificateName is the friendly name of the certificate.

·         EditingEnabled is optional and enables editing in Office Web Apps when used with SharePoint 2013. This parameter isn't used by Lync Server 2013 or Exchange Server 2013 because those hosts don't support editing.

On SharePoint 2013 server side perform the following steps:

1.       Run SharePoint 2013 Management Shell with Administrator privileges.

2.       Create the binding between Office Web Apps server and SharePoint 2013 sever by running following PowerShell command.

New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName <WacServerName>

<WacServerName> is the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the URL that you set for the internal URL

3.       View the WOPI zone for the SharePoint binding by the following PowerShell command.

Get-SPWOPIZone

4.       If the results from Step 3 show that internal-https and the SharePoint farm is internal only, you can skip this step. If you have a SharePoint farm that is accessed both internally and externally, you need to run the following command to change the zone to external-https

Set-SPWOPIZone –zone “external-https”

5.       Verify that Office Web App is working. In SharePoint 2013, make sure you’re not logged on as System Account because you won’t be able to edit or view the documents with Office Web Apps. Go to a SharePoint 2013 document library that contains Office documents and view a Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or OneNote file. The document should open in a browser that displays the file by using Office Web Apps.

Procedure 3: Discounting the SharePoint 2013 from Office Web Apps Farm

To disconnect the SharePoint 2013 from Office Web Apps server perform the following steps:

1.       Get the list of host machine which are allowed to connect with Office web apps server.

Get-OfficeWebAppsHost

2.       Removes a host domain from the Allow List for an Office Web Apps Server farm.

Remove-OfficeWebAppsHost -domain “contoso.com”