Outlook Web Access
 

Hi,

I'm trying to set up my wife's phone to connect to her work's email server. Outside of work, she normally has to connect through a web browser through Microsoft Outlook Web Access. I have not been able to make a successful connection. Should this be possible? If not, is there a work around so that she can use the Mogul's email program instead of a web browser?

EDIT: Maybe I'm just being stupid, but I plug in the web address of her work's OWA server, just as it appears in the browser, and fill in the rest of the info with her username and password. All the Mogul tells me when I'm done is that there was an "error synchronizing" The only setting I am unsure of is the "Domain", which I have been assuming is the end of her web server's address.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

She will have to contact her IT department about the options to connect. Some companies do not allow any access but OWA from outside the company. But most likely thye have options she can use. Either push or pop.....

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

Thanks. I've tried to contact them, but they don't answer. My wife is a teacher, and I don't know that the district has a very competent IT department.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

Yep contact your IT dept both of us here access work e-mail through the outlook mail program through the exchange server.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

What is the "Domain" setting? If her email is wife@xxx.yyy.zzz is it the domain xxx.yyy.zzz?

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

You'll need to get the name of the exchange server from the IT department to get it set up. Most of the information you need is located in the options of her Outlook account at work. IF she goes under Email Account and selects her account the info is there.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

Well, I got the settings from her work computer (including the correct domain). Still no luck. I'm guessing there is an issue with the server settings, which I am sure they will not change for little me.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

The domain portion is yyy.zzz

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

FWIW - you can usually connect through a web app to the comany's email server, but it requires a VPN authrentication, or some other passcode to verify it's you.

however, on a PDA, or a smartphone device, the device needs to connect through Outlook, going to the company's mobile.companynamehere.com domain.
and you will NOT be able to connect, until the company sets up rules and a certificate for you on the exchange server side. then when you synchronize for the first time using your PDA, exchange will update your PDA with that certificate..

problem is, until the company does this, you are out of luck. just keep trying to reach the IT department - they should be giving you an answer one way or another !

I will tell you this much - I am a new PDA user, and being able to synch with so many different email accounts, all through mobile outlook (my company email included) is just about the most amazing thing. i can't imagine being without it now. .

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

No that is not the domain. What you are talking about is a domain name. When talking about exchange servers "the domain" is the Active Directory Domain. As far as I know they could be the same, could not.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

Thanks all. I can access her email via a web browser. The domain, according to her work computer, is not a part of her email. Rather it is a word associated with her job, which must mean it was assigned by the administrator.

This is the last clue I have as to what is going on. When I access her email with a web browser, I use

https://mail.www.xxx.yyy.zzz./exchange/

When I enter that into the Mogul, it automatically changes to

mail.www.xxx.yyy.zzz

If I use that address in a browser (preceded by https://), it does require the user to enter a username and password, but then just opens a page that is "under construction".

I think you all are right and I just need to harass the IT people. Unless it is possible to get more info by viewing the Page Source of the web site when I log in that way? Does this tell me anything?

<BASE href="https://mail.www.xxx.yyy.zzz./exchange/Wife.Name/">

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

Keep in mind that just because they have OWA access turned on, it doesn't mean that you can access the mail through the outlook program on the MOGUL.
That is the way it is set up at my work.
Also, from outside of work... they would have to make that available through the VPN or the Firewall.
If they Exchange administrator is knowledgeable, they can turn one on and not the other.

The /exchange/wife.name just means that the web page is displaying your wife's mailbox on that server.
If you were to change that name with one of her coworkers, you would then get prompted with the coworkers password ( you better anyway )

I do also agree with what others posted about the certificate... trouble is, the error messages that you get from ActiveSync are very generic and pretty much useless.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

Thanks. The knowledge of people here never fails to impress.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

When your wife logs into her computer at work, she has to enter 3 items, two of which are manually entered and one which is a pull down.

The first one is username. (manually enters)
The second one is password. (manually enters)
The third one is the domain name. (pull down) If there is only one that's it.

On the PPC's ActiveSync screen, you will notice the same 3 items. Just transfer them over and you'll be rockin'.

hope this helped.

RW

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

I can't garuantee this will work, but the Exchange admin might have Outlook Mobil Access, OMA, turned on as well. It's stripped down WAP like access to your mailbox.

You posted that you can use this to get to OWA: https://mail.www.xxx.yyy.zzz./exchange/

Try this to get to OMA: https://mail.www.xxx.yyy.zzz/OMA/

Might or might not work depending on if it's disabled.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

I stand partially corrected. :disgust:

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

Honestly at this point the best option would be to contact the IT department, and ask to speak with whom ever operates the exchange server. I believe for her to get push services though they will need to update exchange, that might be something they are not willing/capable of doing.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

Interesting. When I type in https://mail.www.xxx.yyy.zzz/OMA/ to my PC's browser, I get redirected to a warning page saying my device is not supported, which in turn leads me to Outlook Mobile Access. That seems great, except....

I can't get that address to stick in the Mogul. Everything after zzz/ is removed automatically, and the setting ends up being mail.www.xxx.yyy.zzz.

Here is some info I get from the OMA address through the browser.

Outlook(R) Mobile Access Server: EXOWA01
Outlook(R) Mobile Access Server, Microsoft(R) Exchange: 6.5.7638.1
Outlook(R) Mobile Access Server, Microsoft(R) Windows: 5.2.3790.0
Outlook(R) Mobile Access Server, Microsoft(R) .Net Framework: 1.1.4322.2407
Mailbox Server: EXMB01
Mailbox Server, Microsoft(R) Exchange: 6.5.7638
User Mailbox: Wife.Name
Rendering Format: html32
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.12) Gecko/20080201 Firefox/2.0.0.12

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

This is correct. You probably need to add a certificate to the phone as well, as OWA is usually setup as secure.

You will most likely need to get the cooperation of the IT guys. Sorry, no way around it and if you do something that is in violation of their policies some organizations will not react lightly. Better to go through the front door and not take chances.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

So why not use ActiveSync? That's what I use with our Exchange server and it works perfect! There should be no certificates or VPN needed if you just go to a https site to connect to OWA.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

ActiveSync is what I am trying to use. I just get an error message.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

I work for NYC and the only way to connect to my work emails was to VPN onto the intranet or setup a custom recipient and have all emails pushed to my Mogul since NYC only has Crackberry service.
Best thing to do is befriend someone in IT and ask them to setup a custom recipient. Works for me fine and most times I get the email pushed before it even shows up on Outlook.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

From this information we can gather that they are running Exchange 2003 SP 2. So their system does support DirectPush.

At this point we need to differentiate between OWA, OMA, and Activesync. OWA (Outlook Web Access....think webmail) gives users the ability to access their inbox from computers via a web browser, such as your home computer. OMA (Outlook Mobile Access) is similar to OWA except formated for a PDA/Mobile phone browser. Activesync would allow your wifes PDA to sync with the server directly. By using Activesync your wife would be able to use the Moguls built in email client/task/calendar. Syncing via Activesync could be scheduled or "pushed". If your entering the OMA address into the exchange server address fields in Activesync it will probably not work.

I don't know a lot about exchange, but I am going to take a wild guess and say that if you try to browse to the OMA address on the Mogul and it isn't working then it's either not set up on the server or you don't have the cerficate needed. The school's IT department is the only people who can resolve this.

If you want Activesync access then you will need to know the Activesync server address, and domain. This service needs to be set up server side and could require a certificate as well.


I hope this information is helpful to you. My best advice would to be to kindly contact the districts IT department. I would also ask that you understand that the IT department might be perfectly competent and capable of setting these services up, but unable to do so because of management and/or security policy.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

If they don't have exchange set-up and the permissions set up for mobile phones to sync with it, you won't be able to use it. My work doesn't let me sync up with exchange, I ended up just using OMA which isn't too bad.

Try going to https://mail.www.xxx.yyy.zzz./oma (change exchange for oma) and see if they have OMA set-up. The downside with this is you won't get notifications when you have new mail and attachments don't work.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

Usually is not. She should know her domain, she sees it every time she logs in at work.

There is a real chance OWA will still fail, if she needed to install certs before accessing it. There may be a way to install certs on windows mobile, but I've never done it.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

I posted earlier how to get the domain name. It doesn't matter whether it is Active directory or the older NT domain setup (hybrid setup), they basically operate the same with Exchange 2003/2007.

Typically, most common SSL certs on your device. Unless you build your own internally, you most likely won't have to import anything. I'm the exchange monkey at my organization and have OWA running but I do disable OMA. I just don't like it.

RW

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

Open up active sync under programs, and press the sync soft key, and wait for it to fail. It should display a message stating sync failed, or attention required click on it. It will display a detailed error message is, an let us know what it is.

One more thing if her username one a pc is username@domain.com try using username_domain.com on the mogul, replace the @ with _, this might help.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

It comes up with

ActiveSync encountered a problem on the server. Support Code: 0x85010014

Searching the web leads me to believe this is related to the server's settings. I'll try contacting the IT folks again. Kennuyidaho was right to scold me for implying they may be incompetent. They work for a huge school district that is chronically understaffed. I'm sure they have bigger concerns than whether my wife has to get her email through a web browser or not.

Thanks for all your help.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

I'm having the same problem with not getting Outlook to connect to the OWA server with my Mogul. I'm 100% sure username, pw, domain and OWA server address are correct.

OMA and OWA both work fine using IE on my Mogul. Activesync works while docked to my computer to sync my contacts and calendar.

I want my Mogul's Outlook to be able to send/receive company emails while out of my office. I know it's "enabled" in the service because one of my coworkers got his iPhone to work with little effort. Why can't I get this damn Mogul to do it??? Very frustrating.

Re: Outlook Web Access
 

I have the same problem... All of the Iphone users are getting on fine.. and I know the berry users are getting mail. Its got to be something in our setup/setting....