Good for Enterprise

[jneusch]

My company is moving to a bring your own device program, which means I can launch my old BB into oblivion. We are going to be using Good for Enterprise to keep separation of personal and company information. Here's what I have found out and I am looking I for other's experiences also.

You cannot be rooted

I will lose my unlimited data, on top of which I will have to pay an additional $15 monthly for enterprise data. I am going to be forced onto a share everything plan. This is not the case for iPhone users due to the way iOS communicates directly with Good's servers.

Reality is I would probably need to go to the share everything plan anyway because of unlimited voice, which I will need.

The Good app has really bad reviews on the Play store and the iOS App Store, but good press for what it does.

If anyone is currently using this app for work can you provide your real world feedback. Is there anything in particular to be concerned about? Anything that might cause a problem for my phone? They say my company contacts will be merged with my native phone contact list. Does that mean Google or the phone itself? I'm assuming the phone.

Even with the negatives I think I want to do this so I can stop carrying two phones. I'm looking forward to hearing any thoughts from here. Please no comments about other apps instead of Good. I work for a very large company. The decision has been made on the app.

Thanks!



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[AedansDad]

I have been using Good for Enterprise for over a year and overall it is very good. I would like a few more features, like syncing of tasks, but again a nice solution for email, calendar and corp contacts.

Whether you are permitted to be rooted is up to your IT policies. My company does not allow it and I would assume must are the same.

I still have my unlimited data plan, I have been told by several VZW reps that you can switch between personal and corp plans as long as you maintain unlimited data.

I believe you have the option to import your corp contacts into your phones contact list, but I did not have to and do not have them on my phone.

Overall, I am satisfied with GFE and it works pretty well, you will feel a bit of withdrawal from your Blackberry as it is not quite as integrated an experience. But, the pluses of Android over Blackberry will make you forget that pretty quickly.

 

[phc1]

I agree. I use GFE and have had no issues. I also have an unlimited plan and just pay extra for the corp email.

I have no interest in rooting my phone, so I can't speak to that aspect, but I've found GFE to be stable and have no complaints about it whatsoever.

 

[jneusch]

I actually un-rooted in anticipation of JB, so I am not too worried about that. I can live without root. Thanks for the feedback. It is obviously cheaper to pay an extra $15 than retail for an iPhone. I don't have a problem with iOS, I have had several iPhones, but I like the flexibility and customization of Android. I am constantly changing my home screens, widgets, etc, and love it.

 

[MBSMD]

Actually, I have to tell you, I hate Good for Enterprise with a passion.

While some of this may be company-specific, for me I'm able to do nothing whatsoever with attachments besides viewing them with the built-in viewer (which isn't really very good and basically supports basic MS Office files only). I cannot edit. I cannot save. To get them out of Good and do anything else with them, I have to forward the email to another account on my phone and save it that way. A big waste.

Additionally, Good has no support for HTML email (or at least it's not activated by our IT people). Good also has a bunch of unresolved bugs regarding font sizes and rotation.

Meanwhile, the iphone has full access directly to our Exchange servers - so you can do anything you want to attachments and has full HTML email support.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Good.

 

[jneusch]

Actually, I have to tell you, I hate Good for Enterprise with a passion.

While some of this may be company-specific, for me I'm able to do nothing whatsoever with attachments besides viewing them with the built-in viewer (which isn't really very good and basically supports basic MS Office files only). I cannot edit. I cannot save. To get them out of Good and do anything else with them, I have to forward the email to another account on my phone and save it that way. A big waste.

Additionally, Good has no support for HTML email (or at least it's not activated by our IT people). Good also has a bunch of unresolved bugs regarding font sizes and rotation.

Meanwhile, the iphone has full access directly to our Exchange servers - so you can do anything you want to attachments and has full HTML email support.

Personally, I'm not a big fan of Good.

I did read about the attachments thing, which is the same way my company currently has it set up on our BB's. I am also used to no HTML on my BB, which I hate, but it's nothing new. i think a lot of the issues with Good is the way IT departments lock it down like Ft. Knox.

I appreciate the feedback. The "good" news is that my company is going to give us a 2 week trial period where we will keep the BB in case we don't like the way Good behaves on our own devices.

 

[jneusch]

I have now been using Good since late October and I am very pleased overall. First off, it's much better than carrying 2 phones. I have since upgraded to a Note 2 since I originally posted about Good. Here is my overview:

1. Email notifications are usually quick and sometimes even faster than Outlook on my PC.
2. HTML email is active for us so it must be based on IT department protocol.
3. Accessing my sent, deleted, draft, and other user created folders is easy
4. Attachments are limited and can only be viewed within the app, but I knew that going in. In any case, way better than the little BB screen.
5. No copy / paste from outside the app. Again, I knew that going in.
6. The ability to sync with my existing contact list is there, but the app will not allow me to also be synced with Google. This was a problem so I exported my work contacts from Outlook, imported them to Google and created a "work" group. It works great most of the time. The only issue is if I add a contact in Outlook I must also add them in Google and vice versa.
7. The calendar is also easy to use, however I prefer using my built in calendar with Google calendar so that I can also see my family calendar at the same time. It's the only way I can at least try to see some of my daughter's activities and other family events. (My wife keeps our family calendar up to date)
8. There is a setting to keep the app in persistent mode so it will not be closed by the OS, but I don't like extra stuff in my notification bar and opted to not check that setting. It has not been a problem at all.
9. I did try the Good app on iPhone for a couple weeks and my experience has been better on Android. I think the app is more responsive. The bigger screen is a big plus too.

If given the choice I would NOT go back to a BB. I am definitely more productive with only having to carry one device. I think most of the limitations that irritate people with the app are because of the security settings of the IT departments that are deploying the BYOD programs. There is no question that our employer is saving money on BYOD versus providing us a BB and the service, but I carried a personal device anyway.

 

[Bluehair62]

I echo the comments above... I have been using the Good App for just over a year. I have used it on iOS with a iPhone 4s and 5, I've used it on an iPad and I have it on my S3. I like the S3 expierence the best of all the devices. Great screen size. I like the fact that I can have a seperate notification sound for the app. I like the persistency mode option. The only thing missing for me is my Outlook Task. They have it on the iOS, but not the Andriod. Oh well.

My S3 is rooted and has never been a problem with the Good for App.

With iOS on the iPhone5 they haven't updated the screen size for the new phones.

 

[amardrai2627]

I have Samsung Galaxy S4 and use Good for Enterprise for my work emails. When ever I get a new email, I will get a torn notification but it does not give me the count of email in my inbox on the Good icon. Has anyone else experience this issue?

 

[Ernie Hayden]

I have Good for Enterprise on my S4. The application works fine but the Device Administrator that is "FORCED" upon us by my employer is causing me to reset my password every time I restart the cell phone. 1) Is anyone else seeing this? 2) what is the remedy? (I've tried reloading Good but to no avail and when I turn off the Device Administrator I can no longer use Good until I put in a NEW password

 

[OMGIH]

Carrying two phones is a pain, so I installed GfE, thinking it would be like any other Android Application but alas;

1. Extra Security features need to be turned on.
2. The camera is disabled completely. Even 3rd party camera software is blocked and getting the camera to work means uninstalling or disabling GfE completely. Not practical!
3. QuickOffice is installed on my phone but when I use it to open attachments, I do not have access to edit, modify only VIEW ONLY.

 

[jneusch]

Carrying two phones is a pain, so I installed GfE, thinking it would be like any other Android Application but alas;

1. Extra Security features need to be turned on.
2. The camera is disabled completely. Even 3rd party camera software is blocked and getting the camera to work means uninstalling or disabling GfE completely. Not practical!
3. QuickOffice is installed on my phone but when I use it to open attachments, I do not have access to edit, modify only VIEW ONLY.

There is no doubt that your corporate IT department is controlling your use. I don't have those issues. My camera works,I can edit documents and I don't have to have GFE set up in the device administrator section. If that were the case I would probably go back to a BB and make work pay the full boat again.