SEMblog

Does someone at RIM have a sense of humour I ask myself?

While playing around with a couple of Blackberry devices that belong to a client, I went through the common list of Blackberry diagnostic codes to see if they worked on an OS6 device (they do). 

When I came to the one for the Voice and Data use (BUYR), I had a surprise when the additional information was labelled "Buyer's Remorse". See the screenshot below. 

This is from my own 9700 that I have upgraded to OS 6. I only use it for Data, it doesn't have a voice subscription. 

Wondering if this was an OS 6 thing, I checked another device. This was a brand new 9780. 

Slightly different OS versions (6.5.0.54/6.00.294 on the 9780, versus 6.6.0.86/6.0.0.380 on the 9700). However no label on the sections. Therefore it would appear to be a 9700 only thing. A curious way to label that information - perhaps an indication of how addictive the Blackberry can be - not known as the Crackberry for no reason!

Currently migrating a client from BES 4.1 to BES 5.

All going well, except a few users didn't migrate correctly using the transporter suite. When selecting the user, it returned an error "The Request Could not be Completed". This stopped me from doing anything with the user account, including deleting them so I could reactivate them.

However a clever trick was shared with me, which I hadn't seen anywhere else, which allowed me to delete the troublesome user.

Select Manage Users, then Search. At the bottom of the page, choose manage multiple users. Select the user with the problem and then choose Delete User at the bottom of the list. You will get asked if you are sure. After selecting yes the user is then deleted and can be added back in again and go through the regular activation process.

A simple fix for an annoying problem.

With the release of official support for Exchange 2010 and BES 5.0, I thought I would have another crack at getting Exchange 2010 to work directly with BES 4.1. This is instead of using an Exchange 2007 server somewhere in the mix.

I used Blackberry Professional Server in my testing, installed on Windows 2003 separate to Exchange 2010.

To my surprise, I have managed to get it working - with no interim servers used. A clean Exchange 2010 installation was used, along with BPS 4.1.3A (so not even the latest version).

In addition to the regular installation of the Blackberry Server software (so logged in to the machine as besadmin etc), to get things to work I had to do the following.

1. Install Exchange 2010 rollup 1 on the Exchange server.
2. Install the latest version of the CDO on the Blackberry server.
3. Set more permissions than normal (see below)

The server I was using also had a public folder store created and mounted. I have not tested it with Exchange 2010 without Public Folders.
During the installation there was an error about being unable to verify the permissions, which I ignored.
 
Tested Functionality

I have tested the following:

• Full over the air Enterprise activation. 
• Sending and receiving email from the device. 
• Lookup against the GAL and the personal address book
• Adding a task from the Blackberry and seeing sync to the account. 
• Adding a task from OWA and seeing it sync to the Blackberry
• Adding a calendar entry from the Blackberry and seeing sync to account.
• Adding a calendar entry from OWA seeing it sync to the Blackberry

Of course functionality that doesn't require Exchange - such as Blackberry Browser access to the intranet continues to work correctly.
 
Permissions

To get things to work, I had to set additional permissions. This may well be related to the change in the database model, which is now at the Org level rather than the server level.

Exchange 2010 View Only Exchange Admin.

This permission is no more, so the equivalent has to be set:

Add-RoleGroupMember "View-Only Organization Management" -member besadmin

Store  / Server level permissions

The usual permissions used with Exchange 2007 set via the following command didn't appear to work:

get-mailboxserver | add-adpermission –user BESAdmin –accessrights ExtendedRight –extendedrights Send-As, Receive-As, ms-Exch-Store-Admin

I had to grant the permissions at the database level:

Get-MailboxDatabase |add-adpermission -user besadmin -accessrights ExtendedRight -extendedrights Receive-As, Send-As, ms-exch-store-admin

Get-PublicFolderDatabase |add-adpermission -user besadmin -accessrights ExtendedRight -extendedrights Receive-As, Send-As, ms-exch-store-admin

As the permission is being granted at the mailbox database level, if databases are changed/added/removed then the permission will need to be run again.
As always, the permission didn't take effect immediately, therefore I restarted the information store and the Blackberry services to get things to take effect.

CDO Installation

The latest version of CDO was used, which can be downloaded (At the time of writing) from this location:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e17e7f31-079a-43a9-bff2-0a110307611e&DisplayLang=en

When I am working with clients and their Blackberry devices, particularly on new deployments, one of the issues I frequently have is  discovering whether the device is enabled for the BES use. It is very common for the service providers to NOT enable the Blackberry device for BES correctly. As anyone who has dealt with mobile phone provider support, when it comes to Blackberry, most of them haven't got a clue.

For some time I have been aware that RIM have a tool available to people with a support contract which allows you to query their database, but none of my clients have a support contract. I actually considered getting a contract just to get access to that database!

However I discovered that recently RIM have released a new web tool, which is free to register and use, which allows you to check the status of the device. In RIM speak "Enterprise Activation Readiness".

It is free for all users of Blackberry Professional Server, Enterprise Server, Server Express and all the other names they have used for their software in the past. All you need is your identifier and CAL key for the server.

You also get a complimentary support incident which is also another good reason for signing up.

From the site itself:

"The BlackBerry Expert Support Center is a Web 2.0 application, which is designed to allow direct access to Enterprise grade tools and resources, and to give you the ability to manage your Technical support agreement and support related inquiries easily and independently.

• One Complimentary Support Incident to receive expert advice from a member of the BlackBerry Technical Support team at any time 
• Online self service tools and resources designed to help with installation and ongoing management of your BlackBerry solution including step-by-step demonstrations 
• All the relevant guides, articles and other resources to increase your BlackBerry solution know-how "

https://www.blackberry.com/besc/dashboard/

Interesting little snippet posted on the RIM web site today.

"October 20, 2009 - Research In Motion (RIM) is pleased to notify you that we are working in close collaboration with Microsoft on compatibility and support for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server for Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010. Compatibility is expected later this year. BlackBerry® Technical Support Services for BlackBerry Enterprise Server for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is expected within 30 days following the global availability of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010."

http://na.blackberry.com/eng/support/software/server_compatibility.jsp#tab_tab_news

No doubt that will mean BES only, as the Blackberry Professional version seems to be ignored. Looks like I will be giving up my Blackberry when I move across to Exchange 2010 shortly.