This blog post is probably out of date. If you want to set up Exchange ActiveSync, you should instead consult one my guides:
	iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Setup		iPad Exchange ActiveSync Setup
	iPhone ActiveSync Troubleshooting		iPad ActiveSync Troubleshooting

I’ve been trying to work out how to sync my various data sources into a cohesive whole for a while now, and using the Mac has made it somewhat easier, since it supports a variety of data sources. For users of Microsoft Exchange, one of the most valuable sources for sync data is Outlook Web Access (OWA), because it uses the open(ish) WebDAV standard rather than the (closed) MAPI.

One thing that’s been getting in the way is the URL: You need to enter a correct, canonical URL to access OWA, and it can be tougher than expected to figure this out, since it has changed with newer versions of Exchange. But I’ve discovered some breadcrumbs that helped locate mine, and thought others might like to see these, too.

Logging In

Note that, for all of these services, you must first determine your OWA server name and login credentials.

• As I noted in another post, the server name can vary but often is “owa.example.com”
• You will probably use “https” instead of “http” to specify an SSL connection
• Your login name for OWA should be the same as the one you use in Outlook, and often includes your Active Directory group with a slash, as in “adgroup\yourname”
• Your password should also be the same as the one you use in Outlook

Once you figure out your correct URL (below), test it by logging in from Internet Explorer (if available). You may be able to get in from Firefox or Safari, but it probably won’t work perfectly. Whatever method you use, make sure you can log in correctly from a browser before trying to use the URL in OS X Address Book, iCal, or iSync.

The URL Problem

Exchange can contain many users, and people often have similar or duplicate names. For these people, accessing OWA can be tricky, since the server will just give up when presented with potentially ambiguous names. So you have to use a special canonical name formally known as the “Mailbox Name” but informally called the “Exchange Alias“ to tell the server who you are, or automated services won’t be able to access your data.

You can discover your canonical Mailbox Name by looking at your Active Directory entry.

In Outlook:

1. Click “Tools->Address Book”
2. Locate your entry in the “Global Address List”
3. Open your card – your Mailbox Name is listed in the box marked, “Alias”

The canonical Mailbox Name or Exchange Alias is listed in your Exchange Global Address List card under Alias

Entourage will actually show you the exact URL to use. If you already have it configured, look here:

1. Select the Address Book view
2. Right-click on “Contacts” and select “Folder Properties”
3. Look at the bottom of the window that pops up – there’s your URL!

Note that iSync refuses to work with this URL on my Mac, however. I had to use “http” instead of “https” for some crazy reason!

Entourage will show you the URL to use - just right-click on Contacts and select Folder Properties

Exchange 2003 and Earlier

Those stuck with the earliest versions of OWA must use their canonical Mailbox Name (see above) in the URL. The format is as follows:

https://server.example.com/exchange/mailboxname/inbox/

Put your Mailbox Name in place of “mailboxname”. You can substitute calendar and contacts for inbox, or omit it altogether.

Exchange 2003 SP2

In Exchange 2003 SP2, Microsoft added the option to use your canonical email address instead of the Mailbox Name for the OWA URL. If you have this version, use the same format but use your email address instead like so:

https://server.example.com/exchange/user@example.com/inbox/

Exchange 2007

If you’re using the newest version of Exchange, the old URLs have been replaced by a new format, and the email address is the best option. Now, the format looks like this:

https://server.example.com/owa/user@example.com/?cmd=contents&module=inbox

This should take you right to your inbox, and will not be fooled by multiple users with the same name, aliases, or any other nonsense. You can also specify “contacts” and “calendar” for the module to go right there.

What To Do Next

Now, you should be able to enter this URL into any third-party application that supports retrieving information from Exchange WebDAV servers, including Mac OS X 10.3 or greater Address Book. Enter this in the Address Book Exchange Server panel along with your username and password and it should work. More on this another time.

This article contains much more detailed information on locating a user’s correct OWA credentials.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Determine Your Outlook Web Access URL
This post was categorized as Apple. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Update: Things have really changed regarding calendars in iPhone OS 3.0! They are much easier to understand, you can have multiple sources, including iTunes and over-the-air exchange, CalDAV, and ICS. Almost everything I complained about in this 2008 article has been fixed in OS 3.0!

One of the things that surprised me about iPhone 2.0 was the introduction of multiple calendars.  I figured that the device couldn’t handle more than one calendar, since syncing to Exchange meant you lost all other calendars.  But the exact opposite is true:  Everyone who uses Exchange ActiveSync will suddenly see a number of different calendars appear, and this can cause much confusion.

After experimenting with my iPhone, Outlook 2007, and Entourage, I think I’ve figured out how to work with these new mult-colored calendars.  Read on for the dirt!

For the most up-to-date information, see my iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Guide!

This post is part of my series focused on integrating the iPhone with Microsoft Exchange using ActiveSync:

• iPhone OS 3.0 information:
  1. First Look: iPhone 3.0 And Exchange ActiveSync Integration
  2. How To Subscribe To Internet Calendars In iPhone OS 3.0
  3. How To Access LDAP Directories In iPhone OS 3.0
  4. iPhone 3.0 Exchange ActiveSync: Better But Not Perfect
• How To Set Up iPhone Exchange ActiveSync
1. A Few iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Gotchas
2. Can the iPhone Sync With Multiple Exchange Servers?

First, the bad news:  You will not be happy with this feature, and it’s not entirely Apple’s fault.  In fact, you might just want to stop now and ignore the multi-colored calendars.

Scattergories!

Outlook supports multiple calendars (side by side) and a variety of flags and colors.

Still with me?  Here’s the deal:  Those calendars you are seeing really are different from each other.  Exchange 2007 (and perhaps 2003) allows users to have multiple distinct calendars, and Outlook, Entourage, and the iPhone (but not Windows Mobile) allow you to view them.  But it is extremely hard to actually use multiple calendars, and the benefits are debatable.

Note that Outlook also lets you flag events in other ways not related to multiple calendars:  With arbitrary color tags tenuously assigned to categories, as private, and as busy/free/etc.  It’s all very confusing!

Let’s boil it down.  Here are the different ways of organizing your calendar, and what the iPhone does with them.  I configured a number of appointments in Outlook to test this out (see above) and watched what they looked like in the iPhone (see at right) and Entourage:

The iPhone ignores all Outlook calendar item settings, only coloring based on which calendar an item is in.

• Free/Busy/Tentative/Out of Office – These flags affect the shading of an appointment in Outlook and can be seen by others.  The iPhone ignores them.
• Private/High Importance/Low Importance – These affect visibility to others and your own scheduling, but the iPhone ignores them, too.
• Color Category (Blue/ Red/ Green/ Orange/ Purple/ Yellow) – These are arbitrary labels in Outlook (you can name them anything you want), and the iPhone doesn’t show what you enter.  But neither does Entourage!
• Entourage Categories (Family/ Friends/ Holiday/ Junk/ Personal/ Recreation/ Travel/ Work) – Also arbitrary, also colored, and also ignored by the iPhone and Outlook.
• Calendar – This is what the iPhone uses.  Create multiple arbitrarily-named calendars (or “Folders”, as Outlook says) and the iPhone will color-code them and display them (or not).

This is terribly confusing, since the color categories have, you know, colors assigned to them in Outlook and Entourage but the iPhone doesn’t use them.  Instead it uses the more obnoxious (see below) multiple-calendar support to confuse us all.

It’s interesting, too, that the iPhone doesn’t show the other labels and categories like high/low importance or free/busy/tentative, and that Entourage and Outlook can’t even understand each other’s color categories!

Making It (Sort of) Work

If you still want to make use of multiple calendars, you can.  All you have to do is use Outlook or [ad#amazon-kindle] Entourage to create a new calendar (the iPhone apparently handily created three for me, “Calendar (backup)”, “Outlook Calendar”, and “Personal”).  Note that, in Outlook, you create calendars by right-clicking on an existing one and selecting “New Folder”, for no apparent reason.  Next, create a new appointment in one of those calendars and badabing badaboom, you’ll see it show up in the iPhone.

If you have “All” selected, that is.  If you left it in, say, “Calendar”, then you might not see it if you created it in “Home” or “Personal”.  And I have no idea what “Outlook Calendar” was supposed to be, since it’s not my Outlook calendar!!!

What’s that, you say?  You want to move an old appointment to a different calendar?  Well, Microsoft made it as hard as they could in Outlook, but here’s how to do it:

1. Open the calendar view in Outlook
2. Check the box next to both the source and target calendars and they will show up side by side (see above)
3. Now left click and drag an item to copy it, or right-click and drag and select move to move it.
4. You can not move repeating entries though!  Microsoft says you can navigate back to the original entry and move it as above, but it didn’t work for me when I tried.  I had to recreate them.

So moving items is a hassle.  And might not even work for the most useful set of items (those that repeat).  I’ve got more bad news, though…

You can only share your main calendar in Outlook.  So if you want to allow others to see that you’re busy on Thursday, the entry must be on your main Outlook calendar, not on your new Personal calendar.  And Entourage doesn’t seem to have a side-by-side view.  And the obnoxious “My Day” thingy in Office 2008 only seems to show your main calendar, too.

Let Me Sum Up

Here’s the summary of the iPhone’s multiple colored calendar support:

• It’s really really confusing
• It barely works
• None of the mail products seem to interoperate when it comes to this
• Don’t bother with it

Update: Things have really changed regarding calendars in iPhone OS 3.0! They are much easier to understand, you can have multiple sources, including iTunes and over-the-air exchange, CalDAV, and ICS. Almost everything I complained about in this 2008 article has been fixed in OS 3.0!

See also Scott Lowe’s articles about iCal, CalDAV, Google Calendar and the iPhone.

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | Don’t Bother With Multiple Colored iPhone and Exchange Calendars
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

This blog post is probably out of date. If you want to set up Exchange ActiveSync, you should instead consult one my guides:
	iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Setup		iPad Exchange ActiveSync Setup
	iPhone ActiveSync Troubleshooting		iPad ActiveSync Troubleshooting

It’s finally here!  The iPhone now has most of the functions of the BlackBerry – over-the-air push and sync of Exchange email, contacts, and calendars!  Apple let the 2.0 OS out of the bag earlier today, and intrepid souls (and me) have taken the plunge and installed it.

While most people, including me, headed to the (also active) App Store to try out the native games, I quickly turned the other way – towards the new Microsoft Exchange integration.

Read on for my first impressions and instructions on getting it up and running.

For the most up-to-date information, see my iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Guide!

This post is part of my series focused on integrating the iPhone with Microsoft Exchange using ActiveSync:

• iPhone OS 3.0 information:
  1. First Look: iPhone 3.0 And Exchange ActiveSync Integration
  2. How To Subscribe To Internet Calendars In iPhone OS 3.0
  3. How To Access LDAP Directories In iPhone OS 3.0
  4. iPhone 3.0 Exchange ActiveSync: Better But Not Perfect
• How To Set Up iPhone Exchange ActiveSync
1. A Few iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Gotchas
2. Can the iPhone Sync With Multiple Exchange Servers?

By the way, the apps are great!  Sega’s Super Monkey Ball is touchy, but I think I’ll get the hang of it.  And my 4 year old loves Jirbo Match!  Too bad the Red Sox weren’t playing or my test of MLB At Bat would have been much more exciting!

Up and Running With Exchange

Seriously, why are you still reading? Head over to The iPhone Exchange ActiveSync Guide for current/useful information!

Here’s the quick how-to for getting Exchange up and running on your iPhone.  Note that this works on any iPhone with the version 2.0 software – the iPhone 3G comes with this out of the box, but original phones will need to be upgraded.  Update: You do not need to buy the Enterprise Data plan from AT&T in order for this to function – it will work with any plan, and even works on the iPod Touch! Update: The process is pretty much the same with iPhone OS 3.0!

We will set up the mail account first, then enable sync for Calendar and Contacts.

1. Install iTunes 7.7 and upgrade your phone to iPhone OS 2.0 if necessary
2. If you already have your Exchange server running with IMAP, disable the account in Mail Settings.  I left mine set up – no telling when or if I’ll need to revert!
3. Set up a new mail account, selecting Exchange as in the photo above.
   
4. Enter your email address (e.g. “billg@microsoft.com”) in the Email box.
5. Enter your Exchange domain and username (e.g. “msexec\billg.microsoft”) in the Username box and watch the text magically shrink to fit.
6. Enter your password (e.g. “OuttaHere!”) in the Password box and marvel at the nifty new “show the last letter entered” feature.
7. The iPhone will now try to automatically discover your Exchange server.  If you don’t have Exchange 2007 with Autodiscovery turned on, it will fail and warn you that it couldn’t validate your account.  You will have to manually enter your server name in the window.  Make sure you enter your ActiveSync server name, not the OWA server (as in Entourage) or the real Exchange server (as in Outlook).
8. Now tap the home button and go into Mail.  You should see your new account appear, and it should show your folders and email messages within a few moments.  Congratulations!  Email is now set up!
   

Next we will enable sync for Contacts and Calendars.

Note:  You can’t sync Contacts and Calendars from both Exchange and iTunes! You must choose one or the other! And the iPhone will delete your old entries when you enable this! Update: You can do both desktop and over-the-air calendars in iPhone OS 3.0!

Ok, enough shouting, on with the show!

1. Once you’re sure email is working, go back into the Exchange Account Settings tab (shown above) and tap Contacts to “ON”.
   
2. The iPhone will warn you about deleting your existing entries, just like I just did!  If you’re sure, tap “Sync”.
   
3. Now the iPhone will enable Sync.  Do not go running up to the Calendar or (new!) Contacts App and expect to see everything there immediately.  It took my phone about 5 minutes to populate these, and I was worried when I saw nothing there at first.
4. Do the same for Calendar and you’re all set.  Wait a few and you will have pretty much full over-the-air Email, Contacts, and Calendar integration!

Initial Impressions

Prepare to be confused by the new Calendar and Contacts apps.  They now include categories, and you can find yourself scratching your head at seeing no entries when you’re in the wrong category.  I left my calendar in “Home” and there were no entries.

I had to tap “Calendars” at the top to return to the screen at right and select “All”.  This could be really nice – I could organize multiple calendars here for work and home.  But it’ll take some getting used to.  Update: Don’t bother with multiple calendars! Update: Multiple calendars rock in iPhone OS 3.0!

Note that calendar entries are color-coded in the calendar, too, which is a nice touch.  I don’t remember any similar functionality on my BlackBerry, but it could be that I just never discovered it.  It took me about five years to figure out how to see missed calls, after all!

The same problem appears with the Contacts application.  Here again, we have groups of contacts, and what you see is dependent on which group you’re currently “in”.  I’ll have to work out how to manage these using Outlook or Entourage.

Thankfully, Apple finally includes a Contacts application on the home screen in OS 2.0.  It was always frustrating to have to go into the Phone app just to look at someone’s info!

The App Store is good, but a little perplexing.  There are about 500 applications up for sale right now, and not all are worthwhile.  There are three “flashlight” apps, for example, all at different prices.  I think the App Store will be quite a mess once all 25,000 or so applications have been added!  It’s already hard to locate anything.

Apple released just two native apps:  A $5 Texas Hold’em game, and a free remote control app for iTunes.  The latter is pretty nifty – it seems to use Bonjour in reverse to present itself to iTunes instances running on the network.  The iPhone shows up in the sidebar and you have to enter a PIN to activate it.  This would be much cooler with an AirTunes device – maybe I’ll have to snap up one of the old 802.11g AirPort Expresses currently offered at MacMall for $59!

There are some other worthwhile apps, too.  MLB At Bat is great – live game updates and video clips of major plays.  I think I’ll be using this a lot!  Definitely worth $5 to me.

I already mentioned a couple of games, but I was more interested in trying out the social networking applications.  AOL released a free version of Instant Messenger, but I’m not sure if it (yet) supports Apple’s always-on push service.  There’s a FaceBook app, too, but it doesn’t look much better than the web version.

This brings me to a major concern about the App Store.  Why make a native app to do something the web does just as well?  I can see where an offline book or map reader would be handy, but why MySpace?  There are lots of Bibles in there already, but where is the off-line/on-line version of Wikipedia that I had hoped for?

Google added a search app, covering both the web and local content on the phone.  But where’s Google Talk?  Shockingly, after literally sharing the stage with Google at the iPhone’s introduction, Yahoo! is entirely absent from the App Store.  Microsoft isn’t there, either.

But there were some nice surprises.  Yelp, Pandora, and Paypal all have free clients that look useful.  Time will tell which of these apps really get used!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | How To Set Up iPhone Exchange ActiveSync
This post was categorized as Apple, Personal, Terabyte home. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.