Configuration options for EWS in Exchange

Find information about configuration settings that your EWS client can access, and the configurable Exchange settings that can affect your EWS client.

Many configuration settings can affect what your EWS client application can do. These configuration settings are either:

  • Read-only or read-writeable from the client.

  • Accessed on the Exchange server that hosts your EWS service.

A client can access settings on Exchange Online, Exchange Online as part of Office 365, and an on-premise Exchange server. All on-premise Exchange server settings are available to Exchange administrators; however, not all of these settings are available to Exchange Online tenant administrators. This article describes which configuration settings clients, Exchange Server administrators, and Exchange Online tenant administrators can access.

Configuration settings that clients can access

Your client application can get and set a number of configuration options from the Exchange server. Configuration settings that all EWS applications need are provided by the Autodiscover service. Other configuration settings are used for specific application scenarios.

Table 1. Web service features that provide configuration options for EWS clients

Feature Description
Autodiscover service
The Autodiscover service provides your client applications with configuration information so that your client can automatically configure itself to communicate with EWS.
Custom configuration information stored in a mailbox
You can use one of several options to store custom configuration information in your mailbox: user configuration objects, custom items, or extended properties.
Delegate management
EWS provides CRUD operations for managing delegate access to a mailbox. Delegates are users who have been given permission to access another user's mailbox.

You can use the delegate management operations to enable delegate management by using EWS, or, if you're using the EWS Managed API, you can use the following methods:

- ExchangeService.AddDelegates
- ExchangeService.GetDelegates
- ExchangeService.UpdateDelegates
- ExchangeService.RemoveDelegates
eDiscovery search configuration
eDiscovery client applications can get search configuration information that includes an eDiscovery search query, a list of searchable mailboxes, and the identifier of in-place mailbox holds.
Folder permissions
Folder permissions limit what a user can do in a public folder, and in the case of delegate access, what a delegate can do in another user's folder. You can use either the Folder.Bind method or the GetFolder operation to access the permission set of every folder, including public folders, shared private folders, or folders to which users have delegate access.
Mail tips, Unified Messaging, or protection rules
The GetServiceConfiguration operation provides read-only service configuration information for mail tips, Unified Messaging, and protection rules.

Configuration settings that administrators can access on the Exchange server

Most client application scenarios don't require changes to server configuration settings; however, some scenarios do. For example, to enable a middle-tier application to act as a user, you need to set Exchange Impersonation on the server. Note that some settings can only be accessed on on-premise Exchange servers. If you are targeting Exchange Online, your client application might need to work with the default settings.

Table 2. Exchange server configuration options that affect EWS clients

Feature Accessible from Exchange Online? For more information, see…
Virtual directory settings (including authentication)
No
Get-WebServicesVirtualDirectory
Set-WebServicesVirtualDirectory
Autodiscover
No
Get-AutodiscoverVirtualDirectory
Set-AutodiscoverVirtualDirectory
Compliance
Yes
Archiving
eDiscovery
Retention hold
Data loss prevention
Delegate management
Yes
Manage Permissions for Recipients
Exchange Impersonation
Yes
Configure Exchange Impersonation
Mail tips, Unified Messaging, or protection rules
Yes
MailTips
Unified Messaging Cmdlets
Outlook Protection Rules
Throttling
No
Throttling settings
User agent filtering
Yes
User agent filtering

See also