After the introduction of Exchange 2010 RTM, many developers –especially on Sharepoint – complained that Microsoft had dropped Web Parts support. Web Parts are small pieces of (Exchange) content which you can incorporate in your own (Sharepoint) application or personalized web page using customized URLs. The source of this content can the mailbox of the authenticated user or other mailboxes to which that user has sufficient permissions.

For example, in Exchange 2007 you can access a web part showing your weekly Exchange calendar using the following URL:

https://ex2007/owa/?cmd=contents&module=calendar&view=weekly

Now in Exchange 2010 RTM this didn’t work anymore. Luckily, with SP1 Web Parts were reinstated. Calling a Web Part through an URL always starts with https://<FQDN>/owa, followed by one or more of the following parameters:

• SMTP address – This overrides the mailbox to open by specifying the SMTP address associated with the mailbox you want to access, e.g. fblake@lab.local. This parameter always needs to be specified first as part of the location, i.e. it’s not a parameter;
• cmd – Must be used present when not specifying a specific mailbox and it’s assigned value should be “contents”. This parameter makes sure the Web Part is shown and not the full OWA interface;
• id (optional) – opens a specific folder by specifying its PR_ENTRY_ID value;
• fpath (optional) – specifies mailbox folder to display starting from the root folder, e.g. projects/2010. Note that when you specify Inbox you might encounter issues because of user’s localization settings, i.e. “Postvak IN” (Dutch) instead of Inbox;
• module (optional) – specifies one of the standard folders to open, preventing localization issues. Possible values are Inbox, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks or Publicfolders;
• view (optional) – Configure the view depending on the folder. For example, for calendar you can specify monthly, weekly or daily; for Inbox view you can specify a few sort options.
• d, m, y (optional) – Allows you to specify a date for the calendar view;
• part (optional) – When specifying part=1, the Web Part will be shown using reduced UI to make it more compact.

Note that when constructing the URL you need to comply with URL encoding rules, so replace a space with %20 and a slash with %2f for example. More information on this subject here. Also, use “?” before the first parameter and “&” between any additional parameters.

Some examples:

Open a monthly view of our calendar:
https://<FQDN>/owa/?cmd=contents&module=calendar&view=monthly

Open our Inbox:
https://<FQDN>/owa/?cmd=contents&module=inbox

Open our inbox with a reduced UI (to fit it in smaller spaces):
https://<FQDN>/owa/?cmd=contents&module=inbox&part=1

Access the Projects folder located in the root of another mailbox:
https://<FQDN>/owa/pmortimer@lab.local/?cmd=contents&fpath=projects

For those unfamiliar with this Web Part functionality, be sure to check it out as it allows you to easily integrate Exchange information in your application or website. More detailed information on using Outlook Web App Web Parts check here. For those running Exchange 2007, this information is located here (there are some minor differences).