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Exchange Push users, what doesnt work?

J

jhferry

Newbie
Hi everyone, I have higher ups in my company that have been on Windows Mobile for years and are sick of it. The thing is though for the most part calendaring, contacts and email push are perfect. They can view attachments and listen to some tunes. They are going crazy over the droid (mostly because I have fended them off the iphone)

So how well does it work? They frequently move meetings, have delegates (something Blackberry doesnt handle well) and have tons of contacts.

Just trying to see what negatives I might encounter.
 
I just got my Verizon Motorola Droid a few days ago, sync'd it with our company exchange server without any issues- pretty straight forward.

I am still learning the nuances of this phone, so there may be solutions to this, but so far I haven't found the answers. I also used my ipod Touch pretty much for everything I could, especially email, so my perspective is based on that comparison. Also note everything I list here, my ipod touch can, and droid Can't. :p

What I don't like about the "exchange" client built into the new Droid phones:
- Emails list title only- no way to preview a few lines of the body.
- NO Way i've found to include a signature in your emails/Exchange account (other than Gmail). Real pain for me since by policy I must include specific text in our signature when emailing clients.
- No way i've found to move emails to another folder in your inbox. I can view other folders, just can't figure out how to move them. Again annoying when dealing with a few dozen emails daily that I would normally sort.
- Calendar: not as clean as the ipod touch/iphone, but it takes a bit of getting used to. Have to drill down or switch to weekly or daily view to see specifics.
- Calendar events: sends a notify tone, but otherwise just puts a little icon in your top bar that you'll need to view to find out what event just alarmed.
- Haven't really tried setting up meeting invites/events yet on the phone itself. It looks like it has all the features needed.
- I did receive one or 2 meeting invites since i've had the phone, and if i recall correctly, it seemed to work just fine. I'll know more this week.


That's it in a nut shell. I'm still used to my ipod touch interface, so there are a lot of little annoyances with the Droid but i'm attributing them to just a changed learning curve.

I don't think it's ready to be a corporate phone yet- I believe those top 3 items need to be addressed first.



-Digz
 
How did you sync with your company Exchange server? Are you using Activesync? My company does not support Activesync and I'm trying to determine how I can get my email, contacts, calendar, notes, etc.?
 
jhferry said:
So how well does it work? They frequently move meetings, have delegates (something Blackberry doesnt handle well) and have tons of contacts.

Just trying to see what negatives I might encounter.
Click to expand...

It works great, unless you use any provisioned policies. Then it will not work at all.

Provisioning is the enforcement of policies, like required PIN, remote wipe, or device encryption. In exchange 2007, you have unselected "Allow non-provisionable devices" in your policy, and set one or more options on the Password tab.

Change request is here, add your comments if you need this feature.
Issue 4475 - android - Support for ActiveSync provisioning protocol - Project Hosting on Google Code
 
Digerati Great little list here and jhferry is on the same ride I'm on with my company...

Questions regarding contacts - While I wait for this phone to get to me for real testing. Are contacts able to by synced up?

I'll be sure to share what I find and come up with as soon as I get the unit.
 
I literally just sync'd the Droid. I am going to state things I dont like under the assumption that I just dont know how to do it.

1) No progress bar for syncing ( I was able to do an initial sync but now get cannot connect to server )

2) No syncing for Notes and Tasks, not even through a local client

3) Calendar view as already mentioned

4) Its kind of messy, again in regards to Exchange. You really have no idea what is going on behind the scenes.

5) No sort options for Contacts (I mean cmon)

Is any of this user error? What is a good faq out there on using android if you havent before?
 
My Corporate Calendar is trying to update but keeps crashing. Email and Contacts sync fine. I get a 'force close' after 5-10 secs of updating.

Any ideas?


jhferry said:
I literally just sync'd the Droid. I am going to state things I dont like under the assumption that I just dont know how to do it.

1) No progress bar for syncing ( I was able to do an initial sync but now get cannot connect to server )

2) No syncing for Notes and Tasks, not even through a local client

3) Calendar view as already mentioned

4) Its kind of messy, again in regards to Exchange. You really have no idea what is going on behind the scenes.

5) No sort options for Contacts (I mean cmon)

Is any of this user error? What is a good faq out there on using android if you havent before?
Click to expand...
 
I have decided to send mine back, the Exchange client is garbage. I got sent a meeting update and it just came as an email. I will wait for them to get their act together with real Exchange integration.
 
So my review is more or less based on what I've experienced with the Motorola Android and Exchange. I've just spent quite a bit of time using the iPhone so I was excited to see what the Android offered. I've got other gripes with the phone, apps and general performance and behavior, but I'll save them for a separate thread. :)


  • Email display
    • Why so dark?
    • Why no preview message option?
  • Calendar
    • Android: I could not accept a calendar appointment either through my CORP email or IMAP account. Through the CORP account it comes in as a normal message. It will show up in your calendar, but its not officially accepted, but can be done so there? :rolleyes: Trying to use my IMAP account to accept the invite totally failed saying it count open the invite. I do something wrong?
    • iPhone: Not much better, but I was able to accept calendar invites on both my IMAP and Exchange (CORP) accounts. No funny workarounds.
  • Email signatures
    • Android: No way to have seprate signatures nor a work around. If you do set a GMail signature, it will be used for your IMAP account, but not the CORP - Why?
    • iPhone: Not much better here, but a workaround using an app called iSignature. Due to the closed source the app can only do but so much, but with this workaround I've been fine the past month or so.
  • Inbox search
    • Android: No search option? WTF?
    • iPhone: Search is there and works great.
Overall it's not that bad - but they really need to step it up for corporate email and calendar support
 
Any way around the 30 day limit on email retention? Can't find a way to select no time limit and 30 days of email in a corop environment is not acceptable.

Regards..... Steve
 
-I have also been a long-time user of both Exchange and Window Mobile phones. Like many of you, I was very disappointed with the standard Android email app when used with Exchange vs. the functionality of the WM Pocket Outlook client.

But before you give up, do yourself a favor and check out TouchDown. It's a standalone email client specifically designed for Exchange. While it's still not perfect, it does address most of the issues you've been raising. It supports email signature, moving items to any folder (even those you're not syncing), can sync as long a time period as you want, and has lots of flexibility in terms of attachments, reminders, sync schedules, out-of-office autoresponders, etc. It syncs email, calendar, contacts, and tasks. Doesn't handle notes, but I think this is an ActiveSync issue because WM doesn't do this over-the-air either.

Has nice search for local content, but alas not the new remote server search that came in Exchange 2007. It will search the GAL for contacts, however.

And though no one has mentioned it, TouchDown supports automatic sync of subfolders, which the Android client doesn't. (You have to manually sync each subfolder when you want to view it, which is insane.)

Finally, TouchDown lets you maintain all your data on the SD card instead of the precious main storage -- critical for me since my synced data is currently about 13 meg. You really have to dig to find the "move to SD" option, but it's there (hint: context menu on an account profile!)

There is a free 10-day trial; for $10 I think it's a bargain. May change your whole outlook (bad pun!)

Rob

PS - @araskin01, when setting up an Exchange account in TouchDown, you appear to have the option to configure with or without Activesync. Haven't tried it so can't say for certain...
 
+1 to the TouchDown Exchange app. The native Droid email app wouldn't ever pull in any of my corporate email, though it did sync my calendar and contacts. TouchDown started pulling things in immediately with no issues. I liked that I could configure it to sync just the subfolders I chose, as I don't necessarily need to see every new, filtered message, just those that are most important.
 
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