Please confirm something for me.

[FamiliaPhoto]

Hello everyone, I would like to run something buy the MacRumors wisdom before spending some money. So thanks in advance.

My wife is inheriting my iPhone 3G and I'm trying to decide the best way to sync. She wants to sync with her work Outlook but not buy the enterprise plan. At the same time we want to sync with my media on my MacBook Pro. So here is what I've come up with.

Upgrade my MobileMe account to family giving her her own email, calendar, etc. Install the MobileMe sync client for windows on her work PC syncing all her Outlook appointments & contacts to the cloud. Then the cloud will sync to her iPhone and visa versa.

To handle her work email we will just have all emails forward a copy for the MobileMe account and set it to reply with her work email address.

Does this sound like it will work? I'm following this path so we can get some of the other benefits of MobileMe like Find my iPhone as she is prone to lose things. But want to confirm before spending the extra money.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[ian.maffett]

If they have webmail enabled - which many places do , you can configure the phone to use that rather than the enterprise exchange configuration. Personally, I am not sure of the difference, except the price, of course. I use webmail configuration for a year + and it works well for both email and calendar sync.
I still create an Exchange account - and can have only one - but use owa.domain.com or thier raw webmail link. ie, mine is actually http://owa.domain.com/exchange - but for the iphone, the exchange is understood, so it's left out of the setting.
Point of note, authentication during config generally fails - simply complete the set up, go back in and turn off SSL if it's not used and go back into mail. I have configured many an iPhone in this manner.
Hope this helps.

 

[FamiliaPhoto]

Ian, thank you for the idea.

Can I confirm some data entry if you don't mind.

email: name@school.edu

Server: https://outlook.school.edu

This is what she enters in the address bar when navigating to outlook web.

Does this sound right? When doing this I get "The connection to the server failed."

Thanks again for the help.

 

[ian.maffett]

Email looks proper. Server, however, no protocol (http/https), just the domain name string - outlook.school.edu. The https indicates SSL should be active and it will be by default so you may not have to change it. Besides email address field, there is a user name field - with Exchange it is generally just the 'name' but could be full email or even just 'name@domain' (not likely though)
The unfortunate part is that no matter how you look at it, you'll have to configure, fail, tweak and find the proper settings... it took me about 3 attempts to get my configuration right and I knew what the settings should be. Nonetheless, there are only 5 pieces of crucial information.
1. Email, you know that.
2. server - you should have a decent idea already.
3. Domain, this you might have to confirm - it's not always the same as the email address.
4. Pass - you should know.
5. SSL - if the link is https, you should need SSL, just http, you shouldn't.
Anyway, it sounds like a big headache but it's all about gratification! LoL.

 

[FamiliaPhoto]

Thanks again Ian. I'm getting closer. Now it is just telling me the password is wrong even though I know I"m entering it correctly.

Gotta keep trying.

 

[alphaod]

For Exchange you'll need to contact the school for the server information; you can't just go around guessing.

As with synchronizing with Outlook, just use Google Sync; the iPhone supports it and so does Outlook. Plus it's free; if you want to use your own domain, Google Apps Premier is excellent for $50/year.

 

[FamiliaPhoto]

Thanks for the help everyone. I talked with my wife's IT department and they provided me with a process to install a profile for exchange. Worked like a charm.

We are up and running with no sweat.