Search in private Exchange 2013 mailbox with Sharepoint 2013 Search Center

Question

Is it possible in any way or what is the best practice to search Exchange 2013 private items (contacts, tasks, mails) from Sharepoint 2013 Search Center and show the results in the Sharepoint Search Results Web Part.

When searching, only my own items should be returned not e.g. mails from another mailbox.

What I have found so far:

• Create an Exchange Content Source in Sharepoint 2013 and Crawl that content source=> only possible for Exchange Public Folders not Private Mailboxes
• Use Outlook Web App => That's possible but it's outside Sharepoint
• Create an Exchange Result Source in Sharepoint => That Result Source can be used only in the eDiscovery Center Sitecollection. I cannot use that Result Source in the Search Result Webpart (Exceptions...). Anybody got this working/integrated in the search center?

Custom Development is an option, I just don't know where to start.

Answer 1

There are a couple things you could try. Nothing in SharePoint will let you do this. The only mailbox search that is possible from SharePoint is through eDiscovery and that requires too much overhead.

I would start by trying to do a federated search to Exchange 2013 Search as if the user were performing the same search from Outlook Web Apps. I would investigate the Exchange Web Services and look at any Search APIs that support the features you seek.