Exchange 2003 - Help for long time Blackberry user

[spenserj87]

I'm used to having BES on my blackberry with email, calendar, and task syncing to Exchange 2003/Outlook.

Can anyone tell me how the Captivate connects to Exchange? I'd like real time over the air syncing, I don't want to have to sync using a desktop application. I'm the admin for our server. I've ordered my Captivate and want to be prepared to set it up on our corporate email system when I get the phone.

Sorry for the newb question - I have done some searching, but Exchange/Outlook syncing seems to vary on Android phones depending on the manufacturer - I don't want to assume I'll have to use a 3rd party app. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Five years on various flavors of BB - time for the switch to Android.

 

[sparky12]

All Android phones, and iPhones, use Microsoft's Activesync protocol to connect to Exchange. This is quite a bit different than what you're used to with the BES. Your Exchange admin, if this is a corporate account, will need to allow the protocol through the corporate firewall and make sure it's properly configured. It is a true push and supports mail, contact and calendar synching.

I believe you're seeing different info online for a couple different reasons. First, companies make the Activesync protocol available to their users in different ways by requiring different levels of Exchange Activesync policy. A high security environment may require device encryption, complex passwords, inactivity timeouts and password change intervals of 60 days. Other companies may just require a simple PIN. From my experience, manufacturers are free to build in whatever level of EAS policy support they want and many won't detail the supported settings. For instance, the company I work at requires device encryption. The earlier iPhones (pre-3GS) don't have onboard hardware encryption so many users couldn't connect their second generation iPhones.

Something else to consider is that the BES forces all traffic to go through the corporate network before it goes to the Internet so if you have any internal apps that you access (e.g. corporate intranet) then you'll have to find another way to get to them, maybe via VPN.

I was in the same boat as you after having almost every GSM BlackBerry all the way back to the 7290. I'm on an iPhone 4 right now but I'm still in the 30 day return period and I'm trying to decide between the Captivate or a move to VZW for the Droid X and possibly a better voice experience.

Good luck with your search and don't hesitate to contact me with any other questions you have. I'm a new to Android but hope to shed that nickname pretty quick.

 

[spenserj87]

I take care of the Exchange Admin, it's a small business (10 users). I'm not a pro, but I've been able to manage an SBS2003 server with BES for a few years with no issues.

From what I've read, the issue I may need to address is the security cert - I currently have a self/server issued cert for OWA and RPC over HTTP - no issues with laptops and such. Will I need a 3rd party cert to get a Captivate to connect?

Also, I work as a contractor for another firm - can I access two different exchange servers (with ability to send from each email account) from the same phone without any issues?

Thanks for the quick reply - I'm sure I'll have it all figured out sooner or later, but I'd really like to make sure my server is properly configured so I can just set up the phone when I get it. It's going to be hard giving up a hard keyboard - but Captivate will hopefully be worth the transition (maybe swype).

 

[sparky12]

That's a good question about the certificate. Our Exchange platform uses a wildcard cert that was issued by Verisign, I believe, and I've never run into any issues. I know the iPhone has the ability to import certificates to deal with the issue of having self-signed certs that aren't natively trusted by the o/s - not sure if Android has this feature yet. My suggestion would be to go ahead and get a new cert and get it installed on Exchange before you roll out the new phones - one less thing to worry about and only a few bucks spend.

I believe I read an article on pocketnow.com saying you can access two Activesync accounts from one phone. Seems like it applied to the stock messaging app and not others implemented by the manufacturer - not sure how that affects your situation, though.

I also just read an article on this forum about device encryption support if the EAS policy is set as such. Seems like it might not be supported. Might not matter in your environment but worth mentioning.

I still despise the soft keyboard. It's been the single toughest thing to get used to (I also hated losing BlackBerry Messenger).

Good luck!

 

[alphadog]

Relating to SSL certs -> the captivate and many other Android phones, now have options to "accept all certs" or "don't validate certs" - so the self signed certs on the server work fine - you get the protection of SSL.

 

[spenserj87]

thanks for the info. I'll report back next week.

I think there is a lot I take for granted with a blackberry - it just rocks at email/messaging and has so many options for managing messages.

 

[alphadog]

Personally I dislike Blackberry because they are crummy phones. Although their messaging options are great, it is easy to get tired of plain text emails, and attachments that are reduced on the server to be mostly plain text.

I think Android will be surpassing Apple, WinMo and BB soon. It has in most areas, and messaging improves every new version.

 

[spenserj87]

HELP - Can't get ActiveSync to work

I got the phone - it's going to be a tough transition from hard keys and the smart BB menus. But, I do find that SwiftKeys is a nice keyboard along with Swype. I hate the soft buttons on the front - wish there were more hard buttons.

I'm having a problem getting ActiveSync to work on my server - and it does appear to be a problem with my server. I connected my phone to a contractor I work with - and it connects using ActiveSync just fine.

When I use the generic phone email app to setup/connect to my server, it sees it (attempts to configure) and then I get a "Username or password incorrect (authentication failed)". I've checked these, I've tried having Domain\User and just user - no luck.

I installed TouchDown (a 3rd party android app that is easier to configure to exchange) and I am able to get a server mode connection, but the ActiveSync connection gives me a "ActiveSync location returned HTTP code 403: Forbidden" error. It will configure using Exchange 2003 connection, but I can't get ActiveSync to work.

OWA works fine on my server. I can also browse and login into https://[servername]/oma from my home computer.

I have SSL enabled and am using a 3rd party certificate. I had been using a server generated cert, thought this was a problem, replaced with with a 3rd party one, same errors occur.

I'm stuck trying to resolve this. I administer my own work exchange server (SBS 2003) and I can normally troubleshoot/resolve - but this one is stumping me.

 

[spenserj87]

Just to close this out, in case anyone comes across it, I finally figured out the problem on the server - outside IP addresses were being denied to the Microsoft-Exchange-ActiveSync virtual server...not sure why it got messed up, but now the native email app, touchdown, etc are all working.

I don't love the native email application. Not sure which email I want to use as my full time email. I've been trying the native app, TouchDown, K-9, MailDroid, and RoadSync. They all have flaws.

Nothing beats a blackberry...I just have to accept that and find what works best on this device.

 

[alphadog]

Nothing beats a blackberry...I just have to accept that and find what works best on this device.

Although the mail clients you tried are not great, I disagree with your statement about the BB. I don't like them at all. Glorified pagers, with single font email, and poorly rendered attachments.

All platforms have pros and cons - once I started using email with better formatting and attachment support, I never looked back at a blackberry. Video, picture, music support are all better on anything but a BB. If all you do is email, then a BB may be right for you, but if you talk on a phone and use it as multipurpose smartphone device, then I think anything else blows the BB away.

If nothing beats a BB, then why switch?

 

[anneoneamouse]

The domain and user names are both case-sensitive. Mine are both lower case - but the first letters of each got capitalized by swype, preventing the connection, until I fixed it. Make sure those are entered properly, and also that the mail server is properly entered (typically mail.yourcompanyname.com)

Hope this helps,

AoN

 

[spenserj87]

If nothing beats a BB, then why switch?

Right, I just meant on messaging/email. I had my BB set up on BES and it was fast, easy to read, delete, reply, forward, file, add to a contact, move to a task, move to the calendar, search, etc. I could have several accounts, each with it's own rules, signature, etc. I could set out of office on my phone. HTML worked great. So for email, nothing I have tired on the Captivate gets close. The email apps are either featureless or slow or both.

The native captivate email is just so simple - and yet, loading, deleting, reading emails is just awful. I could quickly read and delete, reply, forward 50 emails quickly on a BB - painful on the captivate. Some of that is learning a touch keyboard, but mostly it is missing the hard keys and all the shortcuts (f forward, r reply, dedicated delete key, etc).

I switched because my new employer doesn't support BB for real time syncing. I do like all the added capabilities of the captivate - for almost everything else, it rocks. Just super lame on emails. I'm just hoping there is a great email app out there sometime soon.

And the native calendar is lame - I can't really do much of anything for appointments (no recurring, no "private"). The contacts app is ok - nice features, even if it doesn't give me all the options I had on the BB.

 

[alphadog]

@Spenser87

I do agree with you - Samsung's customization is what you are seeing, and it is difficult to use their email, calendar, contacts apps.

All we can do is hope they improve it, or we can get a vanilla ROM at some point that lets us have better apps.

Android 2.2 (Froyo) is supposed to be out for our devices in a couple months, and it has built in Exchange support, so hopefully they will leave it alone and we will get better apps this way.

Maybe you will get an Exchange upgrade, and have better luck with RoadSync - I need to try it myself as I too hate the native apps.