In Exchange 2013, we are able to obtain search results for attachments that contain specific words. However, if we search for numbers that are inside attachments (such as Excel), we don't get any results. For testing, we emailed an Excel document with a unique word and number. Later, we were able to search and find the attachment based upon the word, but not based upon the six digit number in the Excel document. Is there a way to have Exchange 2013 index numbers in documents? We have a lot of invoices where invoice numbers only appear in the Excel document and not in the email itself. We need to be able to search based upon the invoice numbers within the Excel documents.

What is the command you are running to find the desired word and/or # within the excel sheet?

In Outlook 2013, we enter an invoice number in the search bar and search all folders.

Ok so that is not Exchange doing the search that is the end user execution via Outlook doing the search based upon the indexing system and to be honest I don't think that's possible to do via Outlook as all my testing failed. 

Are you trying to accomplish this for user to execute or an Admin across the Exchange server or particular users mailbox?

NOTE: If you are trying to this as an email admin then our DigiScope tool will do the trick

The end user is searching his mailbox through Outlook. Outlook is not caching. When we export to PST and attach the PST file to Outlook and wait overnight for the indexing to run on the local PC, the search works correctly, finding results for searches on invoice numbers and text strings. Obviously, this is not a desired configuration.

Are you saying the Exchange 2013 search (fast search) will not search for numbers in attachments? Would a workaround be to use caching (.ost file) for this user?

I am saying my research &  testing didn't turn up a method to obtain a successful search of #'s within an excel sheet via Outlook.   I am still looking but so far nothing.   Are you attempting to do it like it says in this article or??

http://medicine.yale.edu/web/about/news/article.aspx?id=4336

I get an Article Not Found error on the link to medicine.yale.edu site, I get to the site, but the article is not found.

Hmm odd, the link works here so only things I can think of are;

1. Firewall restriction?
2. Browser issues?  perhaps try alternate browser...
3. Copy and paste the URL to ensure its being properly translated
4. Give your machine the 3 finger salute and then try try again (Reboot)

yale must have been having issues, the web site opens fine now. Yes, when searching as they indicate, we have the same results, no attachments containing the numbers.

Sorry wish I could help.  Definitely let me know if you find a resolution

It appears Exchange 2013 does not index numbers in attachments? We just finished a migration from Exchange 2010 to 2013. We can no longer search for numbers in attachments. Users are starting to figure this out and our not happy... 

Nothing has changed in our setup besides the version of Exchange. 

Still investigating at the moment.

Sam. 

It appears to be only Excel files in my testing. PDFs, DOCs and others seem to index numbers. 

Testing search in outlook (non-cached mode) and OWA. 

You should definitely ensure that the #'s within the Excel sheet are seen as #'s and not text  https://support.microsoft.com/kb/291047?wa=wsignin1.0

Why would/should that matter??? If i have numbers in a sheet formated as text I would expect those to be indexed as well. Infact, cells that contain both numbers and letters, for example: lkjlk234234 are indexed, and searchable in Outlook. 

Well you said it wasn't indexing #'s within excel and as the article points out sum and other actions done against #'s see as text don't sum/calculate properly.    Now that is interesting that numbers and letters get indexed.   Still I would check the #'s that are not getting picked up by the index and see what format they are in since that may help you narrow the issue 

I opened up a support case. Ill let MS figure this one out.

The Support case I opened resulted in this KB. 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3031789

In Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, in order to optimize performance and improve the occurrences of a search instance, numbers in Excel attachments are not indexed and parsed. This is an expected behavior.

Our users are not happy with this. We are mostly VDI with Outlook (Online Mode) and OWA. Thanks Microsoft, at least make it a setting...