Question:

Can I use a Blackberry device to synchronise my MDaemon based Email, Calendar, Contacts and Tasks (MDaemon 10)?

Answer:

Email Synchronisation

MDaemon doesn't currently have a Blackberry Enterprise Connector which provides push email to a Blackberry device. However, most mobile phone companies already offer a "Blackberry Internet Email Contract" which handles this functionality.

For Example, O2's "Blackberry Internet Email Contract" comes with a Web Based Control Panel where you can configure and poll upto 10 mailboxes on remote mailservers via POP, IMAP, SPOP or SIMAP connections for new email and O2 will then "push" any new email to the Blackberry device.

Alternatively, the O2 "Blackberry Internet Email Contract" also comes with an @o2email.co.uk address so you can also forward a copy of mail for an MDaemon account to that email address if you wish via Accounts -> Account Manager -> {username} -> Forwarding in MDaemon and again O2 will "push" this email to your Blackberry.

O2 also allow you to modify the Sender address on your o2email.co.uk account so you make the email appear to have come from your actual domain.

Other mobile phone providers offer similar contracts, but you do need to ensure your contract includes Blackberry data cover as this differs from a standard data contract cover.

Additional Points regarding synchronising email sent from the Blackberry and preventing large emails being sent to the Blackberry are covered in these Knowledge Base Articles:

HOWTO: Synchronising email sent from your Blackberry with MDaemon's Sent Items

HOWTO: Preventing MDaemon from forwarding email over a specific size to a Blackberry

Calendar, Contacts and Tasks Synchronisation

We have successfully tested SyncJE (www.nexthaus.com) with our Blackberry 7100 and 7230 devices on an O2 "BlackBerry Internet Email Contract" and can synchronise Calendar, Contacts and Tasks held on MDaemon with our Blackberry.

SyncJE Settings

SyncJE is available as a 15 day trial from www.nexthaus.com.

Please note that SyncJE is not software we distribute and we have no direct contact or links with NextHaus. We therefore cannot guarantee this software will work on your Blackberry device or directly support it. You should trial this software prior to purchase or contact NextHaus directly to confirm compatibility prior to purchase.

Once installed on the Blackberry device (The SyncJE installer program steps you through how to do this) the following details what you'd need to change to get this to successfully synchronise with MDaemon:

1. Under Settings in SyncJE:

URL: http://<WorldClient Server><:Port>/MDSyncML.DLL

(For example: http://mail.example.com:3000/MDSyncML.DLL)

USERNAME: <the MDaemon account you need to synchronise>

PASSWORD: <the MDaemon account password>

Contacts: Ticked

FolderName: contacts

Calendar: Ticked

FolderName: calendar

Todo: Ticked

FolderName: tasks

If you want to synchronise a Public Contacts, Calendar or Tasks folder instead then use the following format in the FolderName field instead:

./Public Folders/company.mail/Contacts

Note: it isn't currently possible to synchronise both a personal Contacts, Calendar or Tasks folder and a Public one at the same time as SyncML clients don't support this at present.

2. It is not necessary to specify a HTTP Username and Password or MDS settings as long as you have APN Gateway settings specified in your Blackberry Device TCP settings (see APN Gateway Details below). If you do specify settings here, but have TCP settings in your Blackberry Device OS then these will take priority over the SyncJE settings. For this reason it is recommended to only add the APN Gateway settings of your Mobile Phone provider in the Blackberry TCP settings.

APN Gateway Details

On the Blackberry OS under Options -> TCP (or Options -> Advanced Options -> TCP) you need to specify your mobile phone providers APN details so that traffic is successfully routed to and from your Blackberry device.

Below are APN gateway details for the most common mobile phone companies in the UK. There are no guarantees these are accurate as they may be changed by the mobile phone company at any time. In addition you may find that a WAP APN may not work, but a HTTP APN does as WAP APN's often alter the headers of data returning to the Blackberry. For this reason we would always recommend that you check with your Mobile Phone Provider first. If you do successfully use different APN settings please feed this back to support@zensoftware.co.uk so this list can be updated.

O2
APN: mobile.o2.co.uk
Username for APN: mobileweb
Password for APN password

T-MOBILE
APN: general.t-mobile.uk
Username for APN: user
Password for APN: wap (or one2one)

VODAFONE
APN: internet (we've had reports that the APN on some Blackberries may need to be blackberry.net or wap.vodafone.net)
Username for APN: web
Password for APN: web

ORANGE
APN: orangeinternet (we've had reports that the APN on some Blackberries may need to be orangewap or internetvpn2)
Username for APN: <leave blank>
Password for APN: <leave blank>

VIRGIN
APN: goto.virginmobile.uk
Username for APN: user
Password for APN: <leave blank>

You may also wish to reference this site to ensure the APN's listed above are accurate - http://www.onspeedmobile.com/en_gb/support/settings/blackberry.php

Possible issues to note:

1. For your Blackberry to be able to Synchronise via the WorldClient URL you must ensure that http://<WorldClient Server><:Port> is remotely accessible. See http://www.zensoftware.co.uk/kb/article.aspx?id=10024&cNode=2I0B5B for details on how you would achieve this.

2. If you do have any problems synchronising with SyncJE as long as the Blackberry device is successfully connecting to MDaemon the \MDaemon\Logs\SyncML-YYYYMMDD.log should help identify the cause.

3. SyncML synchronises Calendar, Contacts and Tasks data held in WorldClient. If you use Outlook Connector then this WorldClient data mirrors the corresponding Outlook based data. However, standard POP3 and IMAP clients do not store their Calendar, Contacts and Tasks information in MDaemon and what gets synchronised using SyncML via WorldClient will not reflect your local Outlook data.

4. Some Telco contracts don't include "data" transfer and this may incur an additional charge. We'd therefore recommend contacting your Telco to confirm this before using SyncML software on your BlackBerry.