Smart Phones
- Smart Phone
- An all-in-one cell phone that acts as phone, personal digital assistant (PDA), e-mail client, calendar, and so forth.
What Works in our Environment?
Phones that manufacturers have documented to work with Microsoft Exchange and that have been proven to work in at least one instance in our environment to successfully synchronize with the CVM Microsoft exchange e-mail server are listed below and include the iOS (iPhone) and the Android OS (Droid). Due to the multiple variants of Android phones, settings, configurations, and reliability may vary. While Android phones are documented to work successfully we have seen cases where some phones are problematic. In instances such as this, the manufacturer or vendor of the phone should be contacted and a replacement should be considered if this occurs.
Also, please be aware that any cell phone may have trouble working within sections of our CVM buildings. For example, there are very few locations with the lower level of VMC where cell phones have adequate reception. This is something we are hoping to fix with the help of the Office of the CIO, but we have been told it could take years to have a comprehensive solution.
Please don’t hesitate to contact the IT Service Desk for some guidance, we are happy to let you know what our thoughts are and what we have seen successfully work in our environment.
Documentation below in PDF format has been written to be compatible with a majority of smart phones though it may vary slightly from phone to phone due to differences in hardware and operating system versions.
iPhone
- Any iPhone that runs 2.0 (or higher): since Apple has licensed the Exchange ActiveSync protocol from Microsoft any iPhone running 2.0 or newer has been proven to work in our environment to successfully synchronize with CVM email.
- iPhones running anything older than 2.0 do not synchronize with CVM email due to an incompatibility with our Exchange server.
- See setup instructions
Android
- Any Android operating system has the ability to synchronize with our CVM Microsoft Exchange e-mail server. Since Google has released this operating system, VIS team members have tested and verified functionality with multiple phone models. However, not all phone models have been tested due to the vast number of these devices available. A few CVM end users have reported problems with their device properly synchronizing with the CVM Microsoft Exchange e-mail system. Please be aware that this could be an issue for you if you choose a phone with the Android operating system.
- See setup instructions
What does NOT work in our environment?
The following are not recommended and will be supported minimally. Users of these devices will be directed to appropriate support at OSU Wireless or 8Help. Since these devices cannot connect to our Exchange (e-mail) server wirelessly, individuals wishing to synchronize these devices will need to work with OIT directly to synchronize to their osu.edu account and will therefore be unable to take advantage of the Exchange(e-mail) server within the College of Veterinary Medicine.
BlackBerry
- For wireless synchronization with a BlackBerry device, CVM would be required to invest a significant amount of money and personnel resources to implement a BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). The BES is required to integrate BlackBerry devices with our Exchange server; we cannot offer that service at this time.
- For wired synchronization, there is software that can be installed on a Windows PC which can synchronize the BlackBerry device with Outlook, though there is no wireless synchronization when away from the PC. This is often not satisfactory for BlackBerry users who have invested money into the device and the associated service plan, which makes them not the ideal solution in our current environment.
