Looking for some MS Exchange/Outlook Advice

[mihalich]

So,

I really want to hook this phone up to the exchange server at work.

The problem is that I leave my email running at work, and I use outlook personal folders cuz I don't like to leave emails on big brothers server.

On my old win mobile phone, I was reluctantly using VZ Wireless Sync, but it worked and I was happy.

Is there anyway to get emails to my phone and also have them go to my office outlook client? I thought about just creating a forwarding rule and forward to one of my other external email accounts, but then I have the reply problem...it won't reply to the right people. I can't do a redirect because then it will not deliver it to my work client.

I really don't want to use some third party app to sync my local emails to their server like VZ wireless Sync was doing.

Anyway, looking for suggestions, even if it means changing the way I setup my outlook client at work...but really trying to avoid not using personal folders.

Thanks,
Joe

 

[lvl8hacker]

Are you on Exchange? I can view all my work exchange email on the built it client with the Droid

 

[knock]

I use outlook on my laptop, home desktop, work desktop, and netbook and sync them all with my exchange server. I also set up my droid to sync email, contacts, and calender with the exchange server. Although it has nothing to do with my droid, my gmail account is the main email account on my exchange server and it syncs directly with gmail, so I don't sync my gmail directly on my droid. So as it stands, everything in these apps is automatically the same on every device I have.

The native calender and contacts work great. I'd give them both 4.5 out of 5 stars. The native email client is probably a 3.5 for me. It does sync all my selected folders, but they are not in a tree format, just a flat list. Also, it only sync's email items back 30 days. Finally, it does not have a "select all" button. But, If you tick the check boxes on several emails and hit the menu button, it does have a "deselect all" button.

The calendar is crashing every time I try to edit a reoccuring event from a one hour event to an all day event.

None of these things are real issues for me, but Winmo handled it a little better. I'm sure as time goes by, improvements will be made.

 

[mihalich]

Yes my company is using exchange. I don't see how the default client would work for me. Doesn't the client pull messages from the server? By the time the client connects the message could have already been pushed to my personal folder and thus removed from the server.

Joe

 

[e39e60]

I know of no way to do this without a desktop application. There is no server or Outlook config for this. You need an app that would intercept the message before it is delivered to your PST.

Unfortunately if Verizon doesn't update the app to work with the Drod I don't see it getting done due to the complexity of the APIs involved etc.

I would send an online tech support message to VZW asking them if they have plans to update the app.

The only other thing I can think of is to setup a rule that moves the mail from Inbox to PST in Outlook but only run it manually. Pick it up on the phone and then in the morning or anytime your sure it is synched run the rule.

But you can better believe that if big brother wants a copy of your e-mail then there is nothing you can do about it. It's easy to capture eveything before it ever gets to Outlook.

 

[sublimnl]

Hi. Long time exchange administrator here. Two things...

1. you can get your exchange admin to forward your messages to an external account. When he does this there is a checkbox to keep copies on the server so that outlook gets a copy as well.

2. What you are doing will not keep your work from seeing those messages if you don't want them to. Exchange has something called deleted item retention which basically means that when you delete something from any folder in your mailbox it is actually still on the server for X number of days. This is meant as a recovery tool for administrators so that we don't have to restore a huge amount of data if someone accidentally deletes a message or two. I keep my servers set to 30 days. So, if someone decides to investigate you for any reason at work your most recent messages would still be easily accessible with just a few seconds of work.

I would advise you to just give up your quest to avert big brother and enjoy the benefits of true exchange synchronization. Good luck.

 

[sublimnl]

One more thing. In my experience most it guys don't have the time or will to spy on peoples accounts and only do so when asked. In my ten years I have been asked only 4or 5 times and it was always after someone had already been laid off and tried to clear their mailbox. So, by the time you have to worry about something like this you are probably out of a job anyway.

 

[eagle17]

Yes my company is using exchange. I don't see how the default client would work for me. Doesn't the client pull messages from the server? By the time the client connects the message could have already been pushed to my personal folder and thus removed from the server.

Joe

No as long as your exchange server is 2003 SP2 or greater then you should be able to push email from the exchanger server to your phone.

this is part of the exchange active sync protocal.

This should not be a problem with this phone.

john.

 

[benswimming]

Issue 4475 - android - Support for ActiveSync provisioning protocol - Project Hosting on Google Code

STAR this issue, get google to fix all these exchange issues!!

 

[sublimnl]

No as long as your exchange server is 2003 SP2 or greater then you should be able to push email from the exchanger server to your phone.

this is part of the exchange active sync protocal.

This should not be a problem with this phone.

john.

He is automatically moving everything to pst files so in this instance it will not work unless he decides to not do that.

 

[sublimnl]

Issue 4475 - android - Support for ActiveSync provisioning protocol - Project Hosting on Google Code

STAR this issue, get google to fix all these exchange issues!!

This has nothing to do with the question being asked here other than the fact that they both involve exchange.

 

[mihalich]

lol...I got it figured out. It was actually a lot simpler than I thought. I think someone mentioned this idea.

so, I switched my outlook / exchange account at work, to deliver email to my server side inbox.

Now I have emails being pushed to my droid exchange account...awesome.

Amazingly, my rules continue to work if I run them manually...since they all start with "check messages when they arrive". Apparently 'arrive' means it's delivered to the server inbox or my personal folders inbox depending on how it's configured. So, regardless, the rules move from the inbox to my PST folders....awesome.

This is not 'ideal', but it's pretty close, and it works for me...given the few, if any alternatives.

Thanks everyone for the input.

-Joe

 

[mihalich]

Oh, one more thing.

What would make this ideal, is a way to put a button on the outlook toolbar that would do a "run all rules now" from the server side inbox. Can't seem to get that to happen.

I got the "run rules now" button on the toolbar, but everytime I click it I have to manually select all of them, then click ok.

Any way to do this?

-Joe