Froyo 2.2 exchange mail/calendar/contact sync

[ethion]

One of the big things I use my phone for is company email. When I bought my droid phone it was running 2.0 and the exchange activesync support was poor. No GAL support and worst of all the mail box would loose its config and all my mail would vanish. After fighting with this I moved to touchdown which works pretty good.

Now we are on froyo 2.2 and two major updates later. I'm interested in if froyo 2.2 includes any major changes to activesync mail/calendar/contacts sync and apps?

Does anyone running 2.2 use activesync business mail? Are there any changes?

Is it reliable and stable?

Does touchdown support 2.2 yet?

thanks

 

[Nedaroth]

All good questions, i use touchdown as well and it had an update yesterday for the first time since i have had the app but says nothing in changelog as to what the update was.
One thing to note is that when you go to market to grab the app search( touchdown droid) othewise you will only get the universal app for most phones.

 

[MayneMan]

One of the big things I use my phone for is company email. When I bought my droid phone it was running 2.0 and the exchange activesync support was poor. No GAL support and worst of all the mail box would loose its config and all my mail would vanish. After fighting with this I moved to touchdown which works pretty good.

Now we are on froyo 2.2 and two major updates later. I'm interested in if froyo 2.2 includes any major changes to activesync mail/calendar/contacts sync and apps?

Does anyone running 2.2 use activesync business mail? Are there any changes?

Is it reliable and stable?

Does touchdown support 2.2 yet?

thanks

I'm running a custom 2.2 rom and my exchange works great. I'm only able to sync contacts and calander but that's all that's really important to me. When I was running 2.1 I wasnt able to even sync calander.

 

[vegaswa]

I have Froyo 2.2 and am using ActiveSync to connect to my work exchange. I used Touchdown on 2.1 successfully. TD is not available on 2.2 yet. However I don't feel i need it now. I was following this thread for a while.


The only issue I'm seeing is that calendar updates (adding/deleting appointments) don't always sync right. In my outlook, those calendar updates get sent to my Sync Issues/Conflicts folder. Email and Contacts have seemed to sync up correctly though.

 

[nateccnn]

Froyo 2.2 works just fine with syncing to an exchange server. I run Exchange 2007. I used Touchdown for a while because I thought I lost my corporate calendar. It worked just fine under 2.2. Even if it is not officially released for 2.2...it works just fine. But once I realized they combined corporate calendar into the android calendar I dumped touchdown.

If you're losing emails then I suggest that you're not setting it up correctly. Remember that your devcice is not sending and receiving emails if it is set up properly. Your exchange server is doing that. The Droid just sends the email to the server so it can sort things out from there. The database is on the server. So if the email is lost, the server lost it, not the Droid. If you connect a desktop to that same server (using the same account) and you delete an email using that desktop...guess what...it's deleted from the Droid too. Use Exchange Account settings instead of POP3 and SMTP settings. Take advantage of the exchange server.

I maintain that a properly setup relationship between exchange and Droid works flawlessly. If you see flaws then it is not set up properly.

Nate

 

[groovydeus]

... Use Exchange Account settings instead of POP3 and SMTP settings. Take advantage of the exchange server.

I maintain that a properly setup relationship between exchange and Droid works flawlessly. If you see flaws then it is not set up properly.

Nate

+1
I used TD on 2.1 as well...no need now. I use the stock client on 2.2. Set up for [Exchange, Push, sync 1 week] (I just really need today and occasionally need to reference something on the fly...otherwise I use my laptop). Calendar syncs properly (and immediately). No issues.

 

[lokiju]

I'm an exchange admin and have worked through all the issues I had on 2.2 but haven't been able to resolve the issue of the Calendar sync for Exchange pegging my CPU usage at 100%, causing my phone to be very hot and killing my battery in a few hours from a full charge.

Beyond that one issue, everything else works perfectly. Even the calendar works perfectly, just kills my battery/pegs the CPU 100% for some unknown reason.

I've tried every possible 2.2 ROM out there with full wipes in-between each and haven't been able to resolve this.

 

[JP 5.56]

I'm on 2.2 with Kangerade. I don't have activesync? I got exchange hooked up through the regular email app and it works well.

 

[ethion]

Some great feedback and encouraging news!!

Couple more questions

1. Does it support GAL lookups?

2. Does the email client support pinch zoom

3. Is there any voice support for things like reading message subjects or stuff

4. Can you change the font sizes for the mail list and for the email message itself

5. In contacts did they ever up the notes field so it is more then the 10 or so lines displayed in contacts on 2.1? Or maybe add a scroll ability?

6. Last question I promise do they have any support for cut & paste, adhoc text or linking things like phone numbers and addresses to the phone and maps?

Obviously I live by my email and it is probably the main app I use on my phone. So when I'm thinking about making the jump from touchdown to native support I'm nervous.

thanks again!!

 

[nateccnn]

Some great feedback and encouraging news!!

Couple more questions

1. Does it support GAL lookups?

When I begin to type a name in the "To:" field it lists people that match the first few letters from my contacts list. A second or two later a pop up below that list comes up with names from my glaobal address list from the exchange server. Of course the GAL has to be established correctly on your server...but it is accessing mine so it obviously is supported. What I can't find is a way to bring up the GAL as a liust so I can scroll it and pick...or posibly just chose all if it is a company wide email. So while it is supported...it is limited. My guess is this feature will get better as time evolves the Android OS.

2. Does the email client support pinch zoom

Nope. One of the features I actually enjoyed from Touchdown. But Pinch to Zoom reguires HTML and if the email client were set to use HTML...welll..maybe pinch to zoom would work. Mine is set to text. Can't test that for you.

3. Is there any voice support for things like reading message subjects or stuff

I can create an email with voice support but I've never tried reading it with voice support. How would you do that?

4. Can you change the font sizes for the mail list and for the email message itself

I sure can't find a setting to do such a thing. But I swear it was there when I set it up. I defer to someone else's expertise on this.

5. In contacts did they ever up the notes field so it is more then the 10 or so lines displayed in contacts on 2.1? Or maybe add a scroll ability?

My contacts has always been scrollable. The entire list is there.

6. Last question I promise do they have any support for cut & paste, adhoc text or linking things like phone numbers and addresses to the phone and maps?

I can't find any options for cut and paste but I recall reading some instructions and being excited about being able to cut and paste.

Obviously I live by my email and it is probably the main app I use on my phone. So when I'm thinking about making the jump from touchdown to native support I'm nervous.

thanks again!!

 

[ethion]

3. Is there any voice support for things like reading message subjects or stuff

I can create an email with voice support but I've never tried reading it with voice support. How would you do that?

In touchdown you can press on a message and hold and it will read the message to you. Pretty convenient if you use reading glasses or are in the car driving when an important message arrives.

5. In contacts did they ever up the notes field so it is more then the 10 or so lines displayed in contacts on 2.1? Or maybe add a scroll ability?

My contacts has always been scrollable. The entire list is there.

Yes the contacts are scrollable but my issue is with the NOTES field. If you go into outlook and create a contact and paste in say 20 lines of text into the notes field. Then go into your droid contact and look at the note you will see it is truncated at around line 10 with no scroll bar or anyway to look at the rest of the message. I use notes to add lots of info about vendors, contact details, general info about my experiences or relationship to that contact and other misc stuff. The only way I can see it is to edit the contact on the droid which gives me a scroll bar but ideally it should show it when you are looking at the contact info.

thanks for the great insights and help figuring out the options with this release

 

[nateccnn]

OK...I just added a note on one of my contacts using Outlook on my desktop. I opened that contact on my Droid and the note was there with more than 20 lines of text and the whole thing shows up and is scrollable. I did not even notice this was an issue in 2.1. But I can't ever remember putting that long of a note in any of my contacts.

The feature with text to speach sounds like a nice feature. I may have to keep Touchdown afterall. which means I have to pay for it tomorrow. LOL

Nate

 

[hyrific]

The MAIN issue with froyo Exchange is there is no search function. If ANYONE knows of a way to conduct a search of you mailbox I would LOVE you. Otherwise I will be purchasing Touchdown for this and this alone.

 

[ethion]

I upgraded a few days ago and man am I torn...

The standard 2.2 mail does have some very nice features.

1. GAL lookups are automatic & fast. This is a great feature!!

2. Contacts are editable and work with other apps perfectly

3. The calendar integrates with the standard calendar and lets you sync from other sources.

4. You can easily access all your mail folders, they download when you go into them.

These are the main pluses

Compared to touchdown though there are a number of minues

1. Can't play back text with voice.

2. Can't pinch zoom in mail

3. Can't do exchange invites in calendar (at least there is no GAL interface)

4. Categories and colors are missing

5. You can't create rules for processing incoming mail

6. You can't search your mail

 

[takeshi]

Compared to touchdown though there are a number of minues

5. You can't create rules for processing incoming mail

Meaning no custom email alerts -- a dealbreaker for me as I don't want an alert for every single incoming message.

IIRC, Touchdown also allows you more options in specifying how much to sync.