iPhone / BlackBerry Outlook Web Access Sync

[I-Hate-Hulse]

I'm in the midst of evaluating options to sync my work's Exchange server (mail, contacts, calendar) with a new iPhone or Blackberry.

For the iPhone, I was wondering if anyone could share their experiences of syncing through Outlook Web Access specifically. Any glitches or annoying things I should know about? I have this working on an iPod touch at home, and messages seem to disappear after 2 days. I have to think this is a setting somewhere - it's not in "Settings - Mail" though.

For BlackBerry - BIS only does Mail, not calendar or contacts. For a variety of reasons, I can't use my existing BES service. So again, I need something to sync all three items with Exchange at work via OWA. I'm looking at AstraSync - has anyone used this? Experiences? Alternatively if you know of any good BES alternatives that work via OWA, please let me know! I'm not looking to host BES Express so that option is out. I'm not with corporate IT so any solution has to be via OWA - I can't install anything on the corporate side.

[kermitology]

For iPhone you set up the mail account as an exchange account. There is something required on the Exchange server side of things to make it all work, but it's leotardedly simple on the client side.

You can also setup GMail as an exchange setup to get gmail messages and calendar pushed to the iPhone.

No experience on the BB side of things though.

[FanIn80]

What's the reason for using OWA?

Exchange ActiveSync is much more elegant, and it has the added bonus of being built directly into the iPhone OS.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

To my knowledge, it's the only way to access the Exchange server at work. The No Fun Police at work says that all mobile devices shall be owned by the corporation and will access the system via an IT administered BES. Hence my need to find an external solution.

Are there ways other than OWA? Is OWA part of Exchange ActiveSync? I didn't think there were any other external facing means to get at the Exchange server than OWA.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

To my knowledge, it's the only way to access the Exchange server at work. The No Fun Police at work says that all mobile devices shall be owned by the corporation and will access the system via an IT administered BES. Hence my need to find an external solution.

Are there ways other than OWA? Is OWA part of Exchange ActiveSync? I didn't think there were any other external facing means to get at the Exchange server than OWA.

Exchange ActiveSync is what you connect to when you select Exchange as your email account type, and enter your email address and password to connect.

Connecting that way means your email goes into the Mail app, your calendar goes into the Calendar app and your contacts go into the Address Book app.

OWA is nothing more than webmail. You access your email through a web browser, and it's used just like you would use Hotmail or Gmail or even Shaw/Telus webmail. OWA is not part of ActiveSync, since there is no "sync" taking place at all.

[Superflyer]

I have been running the BES server at my work for a couple of years now but I have no experience with BIS so I can't help you there.

As for the iPhone, we have been avoiding them but with the new iOS 4 it has made it easier to manager so we just started a test run with a couple iPhones. Basically active sync has to be enabled on the Exchange server, this is very easy to do and may be done already. Once that is enabled you have to go through the process on your iPhone with an Exchange connection. For the server name enter in your OWA web address (webmail.calgarypuck.com). The iPhone will query this and with your credentials find the information it needs.
So far the people that we have set up say that it works well. It is a little slower then the blackberry but not bad. The one thing that they are not crazy about is that it only syncs email, calendar and contacts, not notes or tasks.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

Originally Posted by Superflyer

I have been running the BES server at my work for a couple of years now but I have no experience with BIS so I can't help you there.

As for the iPhone, we have been avoiding them but with the new iOS 4 it has made it easier to manager so we just started a test run with a couple iPhones. Basically active sync has to be enabled on the Exchange server, this is very easy to do and may be done already. Once that is enabled you have to go through the process on your iPhone with an Exchange connection. For the server name enter in your OWA web address (webmail.calgarypuck.com). The iPhone will query this and with your credentials find the information it needs.
So far the people that we have set up say that it works well. It is a little slower then the blackberry but not bad. The one thing that they are not crazy about is that it only syncs email, calendar and contacts, not notes or tasks.

Superflyer - what's been your experience with pushing a mail account via OWA and battery life? I'm seeing a few reports that this takes a toll on battery life and being used to a BB good for 3-4 days of battery life, I'm concerned as it is. I hear you on the lack of notes and tasks, particularly the notes. I have a pile I'm going to have to convert... maybe use draft emails?
Also - how have you found data usage when pushing an account via OWA? Is 500GB going to be enough? I probably get about 10-20 emails a day and send half of that.


Fanin80 - OWA is actually more than just basic webmail - it's more or less got basic functionality of Outlook covered off. I've used it for years when need to check something quickly on the road, be it calendars or tasks.



I haven't been able to figure out the external facing address of the Exchange server (if there is one, I suspect not), as my sources in IT have dried up so a direct ActiveSync connection doesn't seem to be in the cards. I think OWA will have to be it. Still, I have to give it this OWA sync method credit, it syncs quite nicely with the work account in testing. I can look up users on Exchange, calendar functionality looks decent, and contacts seem to be covered nicely. It's free vs the $50 a year that AstraSync wants for the BB.

As long as something doesn't go fubar with this arrangement, I just may go for the iPhone 4 here. While I'll miss the hard keyboard, and how well suited the BB is for work, I'm eager to be free of the no fun police and the fist of BES. It'll be a shame to give up my now non existent BB Data unlimited plan on Bell though...need to look into whether I can keep that.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by I-Hate-Hulse

Fanin80 - OWA is actually more than just basic webmail - it's more or less got basic functionality of Outlook covered off. I've used it for years when need to check something quickly on the road, be it calendars or tasks.

I described it as "webmail" because everyone knows what Hotmail or Gmail looks like, and how it runs within a browser window. It's a lot easier than trying to describe Outlook as a web service to someone who may not know what that is.

This is all a moot point, though, as you're not going to get that same functionality inside the Safari web browser on the iPhone (unless MS has changed the OWA web app sometime over the last year).

Also, just to clear things up... If you set up the iPhone via the Exchange Account option in the Mail settings, then you're actually connecting with ActiveSync, not OWA. You're just using the domain name for your Exchange server, which (of course) happens to be the same thing you use when connecting through OWA. There's no such thing as "OWA Sync." OWA is nothing more than a web application you run within a web browser. It has no other purpose than that.

[mykalberta]

Exchange ActiveSync works no problem. We have the same policy in regards to cell phones only using the BES.

This might help, this is what we send to users with iphones - they are responsible for support of their own phone.

Press the Mail icon (the Envelope)
Press Microsoft Exchange.
Touch the screen to the right of Email. A touch keyboard will pop up.
Type in your email address.
Touch the screen to the right of Username.
Type in your username with the domain name in front.
Use the format YOUR-DOMAIN\username
Press the .?123 key then the #+= key for the keyboard with the \ symbol on it
Press the ABC key to get back to the regular keyboard to type your username
Touch the screen to the right of Password.
Type your password (enter this very carefully!)
Press Next at the top right side on the screen.
You will see the message Verifying Exchange Account Information.
IF you entered your password correctly, you will see a Server field.
If you do NOT enter your password correctly, you will not see this field!
If your password is wrong, press Cancel.
Start over at the step 2 above.
Touch the screen to the right of Server.
Type in COMPANY-WEBMAIL-ADDRESS - EXAMPLE MAIL.COMPANY.COM
Press Next at the top right side on the screen.
You will see the message Verifying Exchange Account Information again.
If you do NOT enter the Server name correctly, Verification will fail.
Touch the screen to the right of Server to re-type the Server name.
Press Next at the top right side of the screen again.
Choose the categories you want to have wirelessly synchronized.
By default Mail, Contacts, and Calendars are turned ON.
To turn OFF wireless sync on any item, Press ON and it will change to OFF.
To turn ON wireless sync on any item, Press OFF and it will change to ON.
Press Save at the top right side on the screen.
You should see a message that tells you it is Configuring Sync for Exchange.
You will see a popup menu telling you New Passcode Required
Press Continue.
Enter a password
If an alpha passcode is desired just enter the letters.
If a numeric passcode is desired press .?123 then enter the numbers.
Press Next and then re-type the passcode you chose above.
Press Next again.

Please advise, this procedure pushes out the same security features to iphone users as with Bb users, with us you have a password to unlock and it locks after 5 minutes of non use.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by FanIn80

Also, just to clear things up... If you set up the iPhone via the Exchange Account option in the Mail settings, then you're actually connecting with ActiveSync, not OWA. You're just using the domain name for your Exchange server, which (of course) happens to be the same thing you use when connecting through OWA. There's no such thing as "OWA Sync." OWA is nothing more than a web application you run within a web browser. It has no other purpose than that.

This is 100% correct. People need to realize that you aren’t connecting your iPhone to OWA. In fact, there is no reason at all that ActiveSync need even be running on the same physical server as OWA - in a large environment it’s quite possible that the ActiveSync and OWA services would be farmed out to separate boxes for load balancing and redundancy reasons.

To further complicate things, there is also EWS, which is Exchange Web Services. This is basically an API provided over HTTP(S) for client side applications rather than having those apps pretend they are web browsers and interact via the more limited OWA functionality. This is how Mail.app, iCal, and Contacts interact with Exchange in Snow Leopard. It’s also how the EWS enabled version of Entourage works.

ActiveSync imposes a slight battery penalty, as it basically consists of a long-running HTTP connection to the server - this is how the server is able to push email in real time (the connection is already established). In practice, I don’t think the penalty is all that huge, iPhone users are used to charging much more frequently than BB users to begin with, and using ActiveSync to push email isn’t going to force an iPhone user to charge more often than they already do (in other words, most iPhone users are going to be charging daily or every other day regardless)

Edit: one other point of confusion in all this is that people aren’t mentioning whether their servers are Exchange 2003, or 2007/2010. ActiveSync is only available for iPhone devices on Exchange 2007 and higher. So when some people say they are getting their mail via OWA, they might also really be talking about IMAP or POP access to Exchange 2003, both of which are miserable experiences compared to ActiveSync or BES. In these cases, you lose push, and are stuck polling every 15 minutes or so. I think, but can’t confirm, that this is what is happening when people claim BB on BES is so much faster than the iPhone - in my experience, ActiveSync and BES are neck and neck for performance. In fact, both typically push a message to my mobile device faster than native Outlook receives them.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

one other point of confusion in all this is that people aren’t mentioning whether their servers are Exchange 2003, or 2007/2010. ActiveSync is only available for iPhone devices on Exchange 2007 and higher. So when some people say they are getting their mail via OWA, they might also really be talking about IMAP or POP access to Exchange 2003, both of which are miserable experiences compared to ActiveSync or BES.

Thank you for this insight, I totally never considered that.

We run 2003 at work (upgrading to 2007 in a few weeks) I had no idea the functionality was different between the 2 versions.

[silentsim]

If activesync isn`t there and you only have OWA here is a app that can still get you push and what not...
https://owaapp.com/

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by silentsim

If activesync isn`t there and you only have OWA here is a app that can still get you push and what not...
https://owaapp.com/

I would be careful about where you use that app - to enable push access to Exchange via OWA, you are providing them with your login and password to the mail system, and then your inbox is being accessed from their servers in order for push notification to be delivered.

That might not sit well with many IT types, and is probably in violation of any Acceptable Use Policy you signed with your employer.

-Scott

[FanIn80]

Yeah, there's no way I would ever allow that on any network I was responsible for.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

On top of all that, I believe OWAAPP had some pretty bad reviews too.... a little glitchy apparently.