What Permissions are required to install mail apps in Outlook and Outlook Web App 2013?

By default a user can only install mail apps for Outlook or OWA from the Office Store. However, sometimes there is a need to add apps that have been developed by other sources and are not included in the Office Store. In order to allow a user to install a mail app from a website or file they will need to request the Exchange Administrator grant them the My Custom Apps Role. The My Custom Apps Role grants users the right to add apps from a file or URL.

An Exchange administrator can run the following Powershell cmdlet to assign users the necessary permissions to do this. In this case ‘firstname.lastname' is the users e-mail alias (example: Tim.Jones).

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "My Custom Apps" -User "firstname.lastname"

Reminder: This Powershell cmdlet must be run from the Exchange Management Shell

If required the administrator can run this Powershell cmdlet to give many users this role.

$users = Get-Mailbox *

$users | ForEach-Object { New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "My Custom Apps" -User $_.Alias}

Having tried both the Microsoft Bing Map and Messageware TakeNote apps, we are excited to see this technology become mainstream.