Walkthrough: Exchange ActiveSync On Your iPhone 2.0
If MobileMe is Apple’s “Exchange for the rest of us”, then ActiveSync is Microsoft’s “Exchange for the most of them”. After Windows and Office, it’s arguably the 3rd pillar of Microsoft’s business domination. Blackberry’s can (and almost de facto do) connect to them, Windows Mobiles certainly connect to them. Even the aging Palm OS Treo’s have ActiveSync support. And with the 2.0 software, the iPhone does as well.
Caveat: Microsoft loves them some monopoly power and proprietary solutions (in this case, for example, using their own MAPI rather than the IMAP IDLE standard for “push” email). They may be becoming increasingly open in the face of Web-based competition, but their crown jewels are still closely guarded. So, while Outlook connects directly to Exchange for — according to them — the “richest experience”, and Windows Mobile probably follows a close second, iPhone like other ActiveSync licensees connects via something called Outlook Web Access, the same way a web browser might.
How does this experience stack up in richness? Read on to find out!
What is Exchange ActiveSync?
As mentioned above, ActiveSync “pushes” data from a Microsoft Exchange server to your iPhone. This means instead of you having to manually press a button to poll the server and ask for changes, or set up a scheduled polling (i.e. every 5 min., every hour, etc.), as soon as something changes on the server, it automatically sends the update out. So, if you change something in Outlook (client) or via Outlook Web Access (browser), within moments your iPhone will show the exact same changes (and vice versa).This is similar to how Blackberry’s work, though rather than every device being handled by a single central Network Operations Center (NOC), devices can connect to any Windows Server running Exchange (typically your business’ Exchange Server, or a Hosted Exchange solution).
What Kind of Data Does ActiveSync Push?
Email messages, calendar events, and contact listings.
Setting up ActiveSync
Exchange is a magical yet mysterious beast, typically requiring regular IT supervision and administration. If you’re interested in setting up Exchange for the iPhone, Apple provides a PDF overview, as well as utilities to aid in enterprise deployment.
To setup the iPhone for Exchange, start by setting up an email account by tapping Settings, then tapping Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and then Add Account…, and choose Microsoft Exchange.
What you do from there will depend on what version of Exchange you’re running. Theoretically, if you have Exchange 2007, your iPhone will be able to almost configure itself. If you have an earlier version, like the Exchange 2003 Server I was connecting to, you’ll have to enter your Exchange login info (user name, server name, password, etc.)
Using ActiveSync
Due to the problems with Apple’s iTunes activation server on launch day, July 11, I left the store with a still bricked iPhone, and while I was able to unbrick it later at home, I couldn’t connect to iTunes properly and therefore couldn’t sync my data over.
So, while I had a working iPhone 3G, it was a working iPhone 3G with nothing on it, no email, no calendars, no contacts… But a perfect opportunity to try out ActiveSync!
I went through the setup and immediately saw my mail begin to download. I tapped over to calendars and there were my appointments for the day. Contacts? All there.
It’s just that simple… which is really the point.
ActiveSync Email (and Spam!)
Email via ActiveSync works the same, with the same options, as any other mail account on the iPhone 3G, the only difference is the “push”.
Drawback? “Push” spam. If you get a lot of spam (and due to the nature of what I do, my business address has been scraped for over a decade, and I get tons and tons and tons of spam), you’ll immediately discover the annoyance of being buzzed/beeped whenever an “enhancement” or “warez” or “please help get my millions out of Africa” email comes in.
The server-based blacklists, heuristics, etc. filter some, but it’s always a balancing act to nuke the garbage while keeping customer or partner messages from getting accidentally nuked along with them. I’m experimenting with filters via Web Access, but so far this is looking like a major problem for me, given that the iPhone doesn’t seem to have any client side filtering of its own. Little help, Apple?
ActiveSync Contacts
Contacts enjoy both the standard iPhone 3G contact options — and if you use Exchange 2007 this includes picture support — and also Exchange Directory Search. Don’t have someone from the MegaCorp in your local list? Just tap on Groups, Directory, and search away:
ActiveSync Calendars
Like contacts, ActiveSync calendars support all the basic functionality of iPhone 2.0 calendars, with the immediacy of “push” updates (add or delete an event on your iPhone, and it shows up or disappears on your Outlook client or Web access right away), and something else: invitations.
If a co-worker plans a meeting and adds your name to it, you receive an invitation in your Calendar Inbox:
Invitations will display a handy number badge, same as email or SMS, to tell you how many invitations you have. You can choose to accept or decline them. Very sweet.
Bonus: Sharepoint
At its simplest, Microsoft Sharepoint is an online directory for document sharing and collaboration. MobileSafari (the iPhone 3G’s browser) can access corporate Sharepoint sites. Due to its high speed connection and its ability to open Office documents (Word, Excel, and now PowerPoint), and PDF files, the iPhone 3G becomes a good way to access your company’s shared directory from pretty much anywhere.
Again, however, because it’s not Internet Explorer and it’s not using the proprietary ActiveX plugin technology, you won’t get the “richest experience” possible. Hopefully Microsoft will continue their new push (pun intended) towards openess and provide non-IE browsers with a “richer experience” via better AJAX implementation. Maybe even SproutCore…
Using ActiveSync and MobileMe Together
Because I’d originally used ActiveSync with my old, indiscriminate Palm 680, when I hooked up my iPhone 3G, it pulled down a lot of Contact crud that was outdated, and that I’d never bothered to clean out of either Outlook (which I rarely use anymore). This also meant that I had a lot of duplicates from my prior MobileMe update. (But it did show off the awesome new color and translucency effects of the iPhone 3G’s calendar!)
However since ActiveSync is “push”, I just fired up Outlook Web Access in Safari and deleted all non-business, non-current contacts. Almost instantly, my iPhone 3G updated to reflect the changes, and the duplicates were dispatched, the crud cleansed. Likewise, I removed business events from iCal, removing them from MobileMe, which preventing duplicates on the iPhone 3G’s calendar. Now MobileMe exclusively handles personal data, ActiveSync business data, and thus far they work together seamlessly.
Conclusion
ActiveSync, due both to Microsoft’s enterprise domination and the magic of the technology, is an incredible addition to the iPhone 3G, and something that should make business users who value a large, multi-touch screen, not to mention the potential of Unix in your pocket, the polish of Apple’s interfaces, and the promise of the App Store, seriously consider the iPhone in their Enterprise.
July 13th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
what is i have exchange on my phone already and i add in mobileme, will the contacts from exchange already on my phone be pushed to mobileme, since they are already on my phone? and when i add new contacts in the future will they be pushed from iphone to both mobile me and exchange?
July 13th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
You claim that the iPhone connects to OWA is not correct. It connects to the same web server instance most likely but it uses a different URL path to connect to the activesync webapp. This is an xml-rpc type connection that is the same one that windows mobile phones use. Outlook connects in a completely different manor. For that matter entourage connects in its own unique way (webdav).
July 13th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
por fin ha llegado a españa! :):) ahora a ver cuál es la forma más barata de obtener esta joya…
July 14th, 2008 at 11:14 am
I have everything setup and cannot connect. Do I need to delete my IMMAP account to make it work?
I have checked all settings and there are identical to the ones I use to flawlessly connect to Exchange 2003 from my Tilt but the iPhone will not work.
I am using an original iPhone upgraded to 2.0.
Any help would be appreciated. Support for this is hard to find!!!
July 14th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Word is that you can’t have your personal calendar and the Outlook calendar on the phone at the same time. Also hearing that you can’t have personal and Outlook contacts on the phone at the same time. Is this true? If so this new “feature” is 100% worthless.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Thanks - I will try deleting ALL accounts and see if it will connect. Not sure if that is the issue as it won’t even try to connect but worth as shot!
July 14th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
It will not recognize my PW even though it is correct. This is maddening.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
I’m preparing documentation for our clients to connect IPhones using this method.
One thing this document does not make known is that once the phone is SYNCD up to Exchange… ALL of the local contacts and calendar entries are erased.
The whole local phone book was wiped out.
Resolution?
July 14th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Can they not sync all local data to Outlook and then once it is synced, it will be there?
Mine won’t do anything so I am going back to the Classic iPhone settings until someone can help me out.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
Aubie, you must make sure that the proper ports are published to your Exchange server through your firewall. In general I believe you need 443 and 80. I think you also need to set up RPC over HTTP on your Exchange server (it won’t hurt for compatibility in many mobile scenarios). http://www.petri.co.il/configurerpcoverhttpsonasingle_server.htm
Also set up OWA on your Exchange server.
The default on most Exchange servers is for none of these services to be published through the firewall unless you already have other Windows Mobile and laptop users.
I have my iPhone up and running well with Exchange but I can not get my Calendars to push for some reason. Still working on it…
Regards, Chuck
July 14th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
lack of concurrent synching for personal and enterprise accounts is a bother
July 14th, 2008 at 3:15 pm
I synced my phone Microsoft Exchange at work today with the help of my IT department. I immediately noticed a glaring glitch with the calendar. All of the appointments pushed from Microsoft Outlook to the phone were exaxctly an hour off! If this is happening on more then just my phone this is something Apple needs to address immediately.
July 14th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
What did your IT people do to make it work? I can’t get mine to work at all. Thanks for any help.
July 14th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
The problem that I am having is in identifying the correct server address. As mentioned in a previous post, ActiveSync uses “xml-rpc type connection that is the same one that windows mobile phones use.” Does anyone know the name of this server in IT speak so that I can ask my IT department? They dont support the iPhone so I need to be a sspecific as possible. We do currently use moto Qs with ActiveSync so it should work on the iphone…
Thanks!
July 14th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Matthew, I would just tell them that because of the update iphones are now compatible with microsoft exchange servers. My IT department wasn’t aware of the change but once I showed them the settings they understood how to set it up. The IT people should know the correct server address for your company.
July 14th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Alice I just had them look at the settings section and input my information and it worked. It wasn’t anything complicated.
July 14th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I was just with an IT manager who was trying to setup his iPhone on ActiveSync, and while one of his techs had to use [domain].local\[username] to get it to work, his failed to connect with the same settings, on the same server, unless he used [domain]\[username] (no local).
Again, Exchange is a mysterious, magical beast. I still have one computer that just won’t connect no matter what I do, even when another machine with the same settings will.
That’s the problem with many tiny variations in setup causing major differences upstream. The tech butterfly effect.
July 14th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I have my ipod upgraded with the 2.0 software, I am trying to get Exchange email to work but I think the problem is the server address, what address goes here? we have OWA and that address works flawlessly on my Enterouge, but this address does not work in the iPod….
July 14th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
It’s not the OWA address in my experience. For example, our OWA address is sub.domain.com/exchange/ but for ActiveSync, the server is simply sub.domain.com/
July 14th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Hmm… I tried both… our OWA which is email.Server.com/exchange (no dice) or webmail.server.com still no dice, I’m working with our Exchange guy, how can I describe the server address to him?
July 14th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
I have a different take on Apple’s implementation; there are a lot of good things about it, but IMHO they missed the boat on some key Exchange integration features. See http://www.robichaux.net/blog/2008/07/the-iphone-as-a-mail-device.php for why I say this, and what I’d like Apple to do about it in 2.1.
July 14th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Aubie the Tiger I have been having the same problem… please help me!
July 14th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I got mine to work by using the IP address of our email server. Using the example above, if you do a “ping sub.domain.com” you will get the IP address. Port 993 (IMAP4) also had to be opened on our firewall. Hope this helps.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
So, will Exchange 2003 not sync pictures? I have that and could not get my contact pictures to come through to the iphone.
July 15th, 2008 at 1:11 am
On my old Windows Mobile device I could set push mail to only occur from 8am to 8pm. I can’t figure out how to do this on the iPhone. I work at a global company and would prefer not to get emails all night. Is there any way to do this?
Thanks
July 15th, 2008 at 5:10 am
Can activesync be set not to do data roaming? I set this on Windows Mobile devices to stop staff where I work clocking up international data roaming charges. I can find no details on this anywhere. This becomes a big issue if you live in Europe and live near a border!
July 15th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Hi all, i just set mine up in two minutes to work with exchange server. the only issue i found that is not explained anywhere is:- You need to switch off SSL
However this is only offered to you as an option when you have saved the non-working) mail account.
so go through the set up steps and it won’t work…save the new mail account so it shows up, Then go into > Settings > Mail > Accounts > select the account> Account Info > and magically a ‘USE SSL’ option appears, set to its default YES/ ! Change it to NO and it will instantly work
July 15th, 2008 at 11:30 am
you can have both a mobileme and an exchange calendar on the iphone at the same time and view them together. they show up as two different calendars, same as with contacts, but you do have the option to view them all together.
July 15th, 2008 at 11:40 am
I unchecked the SSL to no avail. My IT guys are hard at work and having fits. Is anyone else using CISCO? It is really good but the security is so darn strong it is hard to get through/around.
July 15th, 2008 at 11:42 am
When I ping the mail.servername.com it times out. I am able to get the email fine using IMAP but not with Exchange. Very strange.
July 15th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
My company uses outlook web access 2003. I can login to the exchange account of my company in internet explorer under http://mail/domain.com/exchange. Does anyone know what would likely be the correct server name for the exchange activesync setting.
July 15th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
I can’t get my exchange activesync to work either, we use Outlook web access and all the firewalls are open. My blackberry never had a problem getting my mail. The only weird thing is if i’m on the wi-fi in my office it logs on no problem, but as soon as i shut that off it quits working.
July 15th, 2008 at 2:44 pm
From my IT guy:
Both of these lines were copied out of your firewall configuration. The first line in your firewall is basically telling the firewall that any traffic coming in on port 993 (IMAP4) of IP address ***.xx.***.*** (which is your public IP address) should be allowed through. The second line tells it what to do with the traffic - any traffic coming from the “public” (outside) IP address of ***.xx.***.*** should be “forwarded” through the firewall to the “internal” network and sent to the “private” (inside) IP address xx.x.x.*** (your server).
So, these statements are verifying that the traffic is, in fact, allowed through the firewall, and once through the firewall, it is making it to the correct place - your mail server.
I have tested it using a regular mail client trying to connect to your server via IMAP, and it works fine. So, at least we are 100% sure that it’s not being “blocked” from a networking standpoint. It has to be either a server side configuration setting, or something on the iPhone itself. I am not 100% sure, but I’m leaning toward something on the iPhone, because other phones are able to access the server with no problems…even using Exchange ActiveSync. I’ve actually put in a help request w/ someone at Apple…so we’ll see how that turns out.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
For the off by one hour, make sure your timezone is set right in Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> Calendar -> Time Zone Support
Fixed my issue
July 15th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
I don’t have an Exchange Server, I’m just a home family with XP. What program can I use to push Outlook emails to my iPhone 3G?
July 15th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
Hey all, We have it working perfectly, but there is one odd thing: In Entourage, look at your sent items - specifically, sent items sent from the iPhone. They are not usable. Can someone offer an explanation, or a way to change this? It’s the only real negative so far, with the exception of things that are missing like “out of office” and not being able to create meeting invites…
SB
July 15th, 2008 at 11:03 pm
I couldn’t connect for the longest time. All the user, pw and server information was correct but I kept getting a “failed to connect” error message. My colleague finally clued me in to the fact that you have to hit “next” when you get this error message then complete the activation by turning SSL off. If this is the process for everyone out there with Exchange 2003, this is the most unintuitive, frustrating and poor user experience Apple has ever put out. But, I have to admit, once it works…it’s totally sweet.
July 15th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
@Marcus: I’m using iPhone ActiveSync with Exchange 2003 with SSL on right now, so it’s definitely not the process for everyone, and likely something more to do with the infinite, unintuitive setup potential for Exchange server
Again, I’ve seen an IT manager and user from the same company, on the same server, have to authenticate using 2 different sets of credentials (not just on the iPhone, but any client). The thing is a black box.
You can blame Apple for its partial ActiveSync services though:
@Don: MS Exchange running on a server is the only program that pushes ActiveSync/Outlook data. Microsoft will begin offering by subscription soon, and you can Google “Hosted Exchange” for free/pay Exchange mail if you don’t have your own server.
@KyleTL: If it works on your in-office WiFi Network but not out of office, that’s not the iPhone, that’s your server settings. Absent changing your server (which would probably reduced security), look into using the VPN to log into your office network remotely for the mail push.
@ray: It depends entirely on how your Exchange server has been setup. You could try mail.domain.com but really they could have made it nearly anything…
Aubie Tiger: IMAP is a different protocol than the MAPI Exchange is using. Unfortunately, you’ll need exact settings depending on how your Exchange server has been setup.
@Mark: You don’t have to turn off SSL (I don’t, and wouldn’t, as its not secure). That’s a setting on your server side. SSL (secure socket layer) prevents your user name/password from being sent as plain text, for example if you connect to a public WiFi router.
@AliG: You can turn off all data roaming in the Settings.
@JD: I don’t think they provide time-based automated scheduling for push yet.
@RB: No, Exchange 2003 doesn’t sync pictures. I believe you need Exchange 2007 for that.
July 16th, 2008 at 4:32 am
My IT guy was on the phone with apple and he was having a hard time pushing contacts and calendar appointments to the iPhone.
On a related note, we discovered that SP2 MUST be installed. I was getting the “failed to verify server” message and upgrading to exchange SP 2 fixed it.
Also, just writing to confirm that if SSL is disabled on the exchange server, you must save your server settings on the iphone, (ignore the warning), then go into the account settings and disable SSL. I did this and bling, I now have push email, contacts, and calendar!!
July 16th, 2008 at 4:33 am
Whoops. the first paragraph of my last post should have read, he was having a harding pushing contacts and calendar appointments to a server with a security certificate installed (another client). My server has no security certificate, so I didn’t have the issue.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:51 am
@scottb: the problem with sent items being garbled is almost two years old, and existed in Entourage 2004 as well as 2008: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926521
July 16th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
@ Frogmella: Thank you for that…guess we have to wait and see if EXCH 2007 fixes it.
SB
July 16th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
@Aubie Tiger: try omitting your domain from the username field, even though iPhone asks for it explicitly. I had the same issue (correct password was not working) and when I tried entering my username without the domain in front, it worked.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I have Exchange ActiveSync working on my 3G, but there appears to be no way to edit calendar events I made in OWA or Entourage. You can only edit events created on the phone itself! Am I missing something here? Or does Apple miss the whole point of the term “sync”? If I make an appointment on at my desktop, but then enroute have a scheduling change, I need to be able to change that appointment without driving back to my office, for dog’s sake. Is there some kind of hidden protect switch on the Calendar? Is there any documentation for ActiveSync and iPhone anywhere? (I can find none).
-mel
July 16th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
I can edit Exchange calendars on the iPhone with no problem whatsoever. Check with your Exchange admin to make sure you have write permissions over ActiveSync.
(Many of the complaints remind me of that famous old saying: 99% of the time the error occurs somewhere between the user and the keyboard. The other 1% it’s the Admin’s keyboard… : ) )
July 16th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
I solved the “can’t edit events” problem. It turns out that the iPhone must have exactly the same spelling, including upper/lower case, as the Exchange server does in its database. If it doesn’t, iPhone erroneously treats the appointment as having come from a different person, and thus stores it as a cal invite, which can’t be edited.
So if you’re johnsmith@acme.com in Exchange, you can’t config your iphone as JohnSmith@acme.com, even though officially (according to Internet RFC rules) email addresses are absolutely never case sensitive. Also, you can’t use an email alias, such as jsmith@acme.com — the iPhone has to match the Exchange config. In my case, my name actually has an underscore in it that I was never aware of — the Exchange provider uses that internally and never published the fact.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
@Mel: very good to know.
Exchange user id’s cross-over into email addresses, but many not be treated as such (including case sensitivity) by the server. Same for alias’.
For example, my Exchange email address works with any cap combination as well. I’ll have to check if I can do everything server side the same way.
I would guess best practices would involve always matching your root user id exactly including case.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
I see a problem here. I can edit meetings I created. But if I save the changes - say a time change - the meeting notice is not updated on the invitees computers. Pretty big omission - I have to test more as it’s the end of the day. Good discussions all…
Scott
July 16th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
I connected original iPhone with OS 2.0 to my companies Exchange server in a matter of seconds without any help. Only trick was realizing the name of the server was webmail.mycompaniesdomain.com (not going to give a hint to my IT staff who I am). And it works, didn’t even have to ask my IT staff if it is supported or not!
A change to a contact on my iPhone is reflected on my Corporate Blackberry sitting a foot away in about 15 seconds or less. Amazing!
There are some limitations of the iPhone’s support for Exchange compared to my Blackberry. When you accept a meeting invite on iPhone, you don’t get a chance to accept/reject/tentative with email comments to the inviter. You can on Outlook and Blackberry. This is sorely needed. Imagine saying “maybe” to an urgent meeting invite from your second line VP thinking you will just indicate that you have an important commitment you are trying to reschedule… to find out that the “maybe” response just “went” with no chance to add comments. Hopefully Apple can do a gap analysis with Blackberry soon.
OS 2.0 is a bit unstable… but that is off topic here… happy with the Exchange integration… planning the phase out of my new blackberry as we speak
July 17th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
Thanks bosjt!!!! Your solution works like a charm!
July 18th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Rene Ritchie (post 19), you are today’s gold award winner. Thank you very much.
I hope this helps someone else.
To access OWA through the internet, I go: http://www.company.com/mail/
This takes me through a validation login/password, then puts me at:
www2.company.com/exchange/
This address was the important one for me. In the iPhone, I set the server to: www2.company.com
leaving out the “/exchange” part, and voila. After much head banging I’m now fully synced.
July 18th, 2008 at 7:09 am
@Dave, awesome! You tamed the beast!
July 18th, 2008 at 9:00 am
I got it to work! you need to get the name of your server from your Outlook by going into tols, Account Settings, and double clicking on “Microsoft Exchange Server” listed under “name”. This will list this long complicated server name. Type that in exactly as it appear (case-sensitive).click “accept” that it is unable to validate certificate a few times, and then next to save the account settings (even though it doesn’t work at this point). FINALLY, go into the account you just created to edit it, TURN OFF SSL, and choose what you want to sync (mail, contact, calendar).
July 18th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Contacts w/Categories? Can anyone verify if the contacts, once they are sync’d, retain and understand the categories feature Outlook? (i.e. if I add a contact on the iPhone and want to add that contact to the “Holiday Card List” category that I have defined, will it sync that data back to Exchange/Outlook?).
July 18th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
The reason some of you are having issues getting SSL to work may be that your Exchange server is using a self-signed SSL certificate, or a certificate issued by a CA not recognized by Apple. You can add your self-signed cert to the iPhone to get rid of this problem. Apple tells you how to do this on p.36 of their Enterprise Deployment Guide, available here: http://support.apple.com/manuals/enUS/EnterpriseDeployment_Guide.pdf
You could also use the Apple iPhone configuration utility to add the certificate, via the “Credentials” tab in that utility. This utility can be downloaded from Apple here: http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/
The solution that “Jen” wrote up will only work if your company allows OWA/Active Sync access via an unencrypted connection (ie. no SSL). I wouldn’t recommend doing this, since this is sending your userid and password (and all of your email) over the air in clear text.
July 18th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
If synced contacts from outlook have multiple names for people who all work at the same company - how do you get the caller id to show the Name of a specific contact created with Firstname and Lastname = “Company Name” instead of the caller id on the phone showing John Smith and 25 others… I would prefer the caller id to match the company name I have created in a generic contact. Can i force that id to show up in preference to an individual employee name showing up? all contacts have the phone number 222-333-5555 for ‘work’
July 18th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Thank you all for the advice. I think I am getting close. I have used exchange to find my domain name and turned off the SSL. I now have a folder under my inbox called 70FB9178…. It is empty. Any suggestions? I have been at this for hours. It should be much easier!
July 18th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
” FINALLY, go into the account you just created to edit it, TURN OFF SSL, and choose what you want to sync (mail, contact, calendar).”
Thanks Jen, that is what did it for me!
July 19th, 2008 at 2:04 am
Hi, I have tried absolutely everything here and it is still not working… Jen, I tried the server address + turn off ssl and it did not work… I tried all the mentioned server names, but it is not not of them… Do you know how to check if Activesync is enabled to my account? In my company, only the directors and up can have a blackberry, so I am not sure if it can mean any restriction to the other employees…
July 19th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Hey guys I think I have a simple question compared to others I’ve been reading. In setting up exchange I was pretty much given the password by IT supervision to get the ball rolling but Im clueless just as well as my IT guy to get the iformation needed to enter into the field of “Username” where it has “Domain/User” listed. Can anyone tell me what to type in this field or where to get this info from to move forward….Thanks in advance
July 19th, 2008 at 10:41 am
Does anybody know if having the OWA means you are enabled for Activesync? (When I go to the Company’s OWA website, it tells me that it is a SSL secured.)
July 19th, 2008 at 10:49 am
B.Ross, just press ctrl+ald+del and it shows you the domain/user.
July 20th, 2008 at 2:38 am
Hey trphone - thanks for the info but do I hit that while I’m logged into my Mail on my PC. And is that ctrl+alt+del? I think you made a typo…and by any chance do you know what that command translates into on an Apple
July 21st, 2008 at 3:39 pm
thank you very good
July 21st, 2008 at 4:28 pm
First of all, there is no use trying every server listed in these comments, the server name can be anything and you’ll need to ask your IT department what it is.
Just because your company uses OWA (Outlook Web Access) it does not mean you are able to connect your phone. Windows Mobile and now iPhone 3G requires OMA (Outlook Mobile Access) to be configured and it’s Active-Sync working in order to connect. By default, all users have Mobile Access turned on so if your company uses OMA and have not change the default config you should be able to connect.
Lastly, if you are able to connect and do not require SSL, you need to inform you’re IT department to make some changes as that is VERY poor security practice.
July 21st, 2008 at 7:26 pm
have new iphone & microsoft exchange server, how do i get the mobileme to grab calendar and contact info from the server? data isn’t on the local device?
July 21st, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Great thread, guys. I have a unique problem. While doing the autodiscovery of account info, iphone shows the certificate warning, to which I respond with ‘Accept’. After which it asks me for the server name, which I believe I have the correct one (owa.companyname.com). This seems to all work fine and I choose to sync my mail, calendar, contacts. But strangely enough, I get the contacts and calendar sync working just fine, and even the email folders seem to sync fine. The only thing that doesn’t work for me is email messages. I can’t get the phone to retrieve them. It give me ‘Cannot Get Mail - The connection to the server failed.” error every time! Any clue why this could be happening? THanks in advance for any help.
Best,
KK
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Anyone?
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:07 pm
My ActiveSync is up and working fine, except I still have to delete emails from both my iPhone and my PC separately. Any suggestions?
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:27 pm
My email exchange setup worked fine. Contacts and calendar works great. However, all my emails once read disappear and I can’r find them. Nothing stays in my email inbox. It goes blank. Why won’t the iphone retain all my emails? Any ideas?
July 24th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
My Outlook calendar isn’t syching right with my iPhone (just upgraded to 2.0 software). There are items appear on my iPhone calendar that were created using Outlook but no longer appear in my Outlook calendar. Any thoughts on how to fix this?
July 24th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
Aubie Tiger make sure your Exchange 2003 server has SP2. The iPhone ActiveSync requires SP2 installed in order to work properly. Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 6.5.6944 October 2003 Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP1 6.5.7226 May 2004 Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 SP2 6.5.7638 October 2005
July 24th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
A few quick questions…
Once you accept a meeting can you then decline it as well as e-mail the organizer from the iPhone calendar? I think I read you cannot propose a new time for the meeting, is that correct? Finally, can you forward the invite on to other contacts?
July 25th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I don’t have the “use SSL” switch on my phone - how do I get it? My IT guy said it will make all the difference. Please help
July 25th, 2008 at 9:24 pm
my iPhone is not a company phone (they gave it to me) so i want to hold my personal contacts/calender/mail from my iMac and still get my work contacts/calender/mail from exchange. p.s. and i don’t like mobile me. oh and i live in Iceland aka. not supported.
July 27th, 2008 at 10:24 am
any clues. I’ve looked all over and cant find one way to do it not even a hint. i dont like mobile me because it is still too new tor it to function they way it should.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:17 am
have had problems synch with outlook. Very helpful thread-thanks. My question is when i finaly sync to outlook will I risk losing all the contacts and diary entries I have already entered on my iPhone? Thank you for any help
July 29th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
I have the same problem as Aubie Tiger and none of the solutions here have worked…Aubie were you finally able to bypass it? It has taken a day and it still doesnt like my password. In fact, it wont even save my password even after it verifies the exchange account.
I am a one man show so there is no IT guy to help or run from. My hosted exchange account is provided by 1and1.
Just to be clear, after setting Active Sync it varifies the Exchange account is valid. Anything I try to do after that simply asks me for a password or a new password, both of which I have done countless times to no avail
July 30th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Got a strange one.
I set it up. All works.. but when you reboot the device it stops working! If I go into mail I just get a ‘blank’ screen that doesn’t respond and clears of its own accord after 10 seconds or so?!
July 30th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
I real strange senario; My Iphone works fine when I am on our company wifi, and it gets email,… Once the connection is made and email is flowing, I can even turn off the wifi and still works for few hours outside over the cell network. here is the strange part, if I turn my cell off and on, it can not make connection to the exhange server and I get “CANNOT GET MAIL” error. once I get into the office and on wifi, it will work.
Any help would be great
July 30th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
KK - I have the same problem you had with only the mail not working. Any solution?
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:21 am
wow, great stuff. I have been searching for an answer now for 2 days and it finally works. I tried all the web address’ I could think of to connect and none of them would work. Finally I saw the post above to use the internal server address of our exchange server mailserver.mydomain.com and it worked! (Post #53) thanks Jen!
August 5th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I have Outlook at home using it for a home business and I also sync with an Exchange server at work. Before on my Windows Mobile device I could have the same contact and calendar entries. Now with the iPhone I can only have one set of contacts and one set of calendar entries. Has anyone else seen this?
August 5th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
@Dustin: After entering all information hit next. You get a popup saying “This account may not be able to send or receive emails. Are you sure you want to save?” Hit save. Select what you want to sync with exchange then save again. Now you are at the Mail settings screen - select the acct. then account info. The SSL setting should be available now.
August 6th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
My IT department has been trying to no avail. the problem seems to be there are sooo many different servers with exchange 2003, how do you know which one to make the changes in? There is Exchange Server, there is Server Management, there is OMA, etc. There isn’t one clear concise step by step instructions that tell you which server, which folders, etc. to make the changes in to get the iphone working. My IT department has exhauseted all efforts and are at the point of telling me to get a blackberry. I have been able to see the server and get verified, but when I click on refresh to get mail and calendar, it says updating and then finishes without bringing down any info from the server. No mail messages, no old messages, no folders, nothing.
Someone please help!!!!!!
August 8th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Guys , i have the 3g . got the exchange emails sync going flawlessly . now any ideas as to getting the public calendar to sync with 3g ? any help appreciated ..tia
August 8th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
‘The Hacker’ post 85… I have the SAME issue, it verifies the account but does not sync anything. It will update the time updated, but nothing ever comes over. We are running Exchange 2003 (believed to be SP2, as far as IT could tell). We are a small location and no one is really an exchange expert.
I have tired using both internal and external addresses, as if I can narrow down if it is our world firewall, then I can talk to the group that manages the router. But right now, router people blame the exchange guy and the exchange guy blames the router guy. I got my gmail working but really need/want the exchange sync.
Anyone have thoughts how to go about testing this?
Thanks,
Jon
August 10th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Hello, I´ve been trying so hard to set up my dads iphone to work with his exchange 2003 (the it guy is not really helping ) so I set up everything with the configuration tool and imported the certificate and everything
but the only thing that works is sending mails…
the phone does not receive mails, contacts, or the calender so is it a problem in the server settings or do I need to set up something in outlook ? i did not get any error messages and like i said sending emails works so at least some of the settings should be correct. the it guy says all the ports are open.
so is there anything i am missing ???
Thank you, Rasmus
August 10th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
This was crazy. After trying so many combinations for two days, I finally got it. Seems there’s no rhyme or reason and my password doesn’t show up right, but it works. All your comments were very helpful. Thank you! What worked was the server is the exchange address with the http: ex: outlook.name.org/ with the slash! and without the word exchange, and yes, turning off the SSL feature.
August 10th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I meant WITHOUT the http and the word exchange, but with the slash.
August 10th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I’m a heavy user of mobile devices for large enterprises. I’ve owned 4 Windows Mobile phones in the last 2 years. I just wanted to take a minute to point out a few of the iPhone’s shortcomings for the heavy enterprise user, which this review does not address.
Again, these are all issues that a heavy business user is likely to run into but not a home user or small business user. Hopefully Apple does something to fix this stuff — I love my iPhone for personal use but I find myself using my old Samsung Blackjack for when I need to actually work.
August 11th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
I’ve just got the iPhone 3G. I’ve got the certs from my IT department to allow me to set up exchange. However the guy in the IT department says that i need to install this on a Mac and then sync my iPhone with the Mac in order for this to work. I’m not convinced, can anyone help. Thanks a lot. Flyer
August 12th, 2008 at 9:13 am
My problem is directly related to SSL being enabled on the Exchnage server. Event Viewer message: The Maiolbox server has its virtual directory set to require SSL. Exchnage ActiveSync cannot access the server if SSL is set to be required. I have to have this setting for my CA certicate I am using with OWA. There has to be thousands of people having this issue!! Please help!
August 12th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Microsoft Article ID: 817379
August 12th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I’m an IT guy with an Exchange server and I’m supporting 3 iPhone users now.
One difference with the iPhone Exchange configuration from most Windows Mobile phone is that it didn’t like the “http://” prefix. Once I deleted that, and just used the server name without the http, it sync’d fine.
One user reports that her calender appointments are all reporting as a “Maybe” confirmation, but when she looks in Outlook it appears with the correct confirmation. Anyone seen this?
August 12th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
@Will By your description you do not have a certificate loaded on your exchnage or it would read: https://mail.domain.com/exchange So you do not have SSL enabled on your Exchange box. That is were my problem is occuring!
August 13th, 2008 at 10:40 am
mark -
Thanks for the advice on setting up the account and turning off SSL!!
August 13th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
@David Hyde I just tried your suggestion about leaving out the “/exchange” part of the server name and it worked. THANK YOU!!!! I have been trying to get this to work for a month now.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:12 am
turning off SSL on your iphone only works if you do not have SSL enable on your exchange server. Then you are sending your username and password in plain text.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:14 am
Nobody knows about this one?
The Mailbox server has its virtual directory set to require SSL. Exchnage ActiveSync cannot access the server if SSL is set to be required.
August 14th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I have a strange problem with the IPhone, I have an Exchange 2007 SP1, I am able to get my emails through ActiveSync, but there is a delay receive the emails. When I do a manual sync then the activesync would work great for a couple of hours then it would stop. When I do another manual sync I will receive all the emails on my Outlook that I have not received on the IPhone. Then the activesync would work for couple hours again.. Any thoughts?
August 14th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Ken, we have the exact same situation..and the solution looks iffy. did you do method 2?
August 18th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
KK and JA, it seem I have a problem somewhat similar to yours - my contacts sync fine, however the calendar doesn’t sync at all, and the email only downloads the folders, but none of the emails in them. When I attempt to sync the individual folders it tells me “connection to the server failed”. I have already talked to resident geniuses at the apple store and the exchange admin people - all are clueless… Please let me know if you or anyone know how to fix this. Ahh… missing my n95 so much…
August 18th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
I have spent a week trying to get this to work and wanted to share….
Exchange 2003 OWA (Exch 2003) front end published through ISA 2004 array
I had to change the publishing rule on ISA to include a new path:
/microsoft-server-activesync/*
It already had /exchange/* and the other usual ones but this is the one you need to get the iPhone to connect using Activesync
Then the servername is the same as OWA without the /exchange Username does not need the domain prefix either.
I hope this helps someone.
August 20th, 2008 at 12:27 am
Iphone is pushing email, but not contacts- any guess as to the problem?