Exchange Delegation Support on iPad in Mail

[Supa_Fly]

Hi,



I've recently deployed 7 iPads in the corporate office and I'm having 2 issues with regards to Delegates Accepting Meeting requests.



1 Delegate can logon to Outlook OWA via Safari browser - yet discovered a limitation; OWA in Safari loads with the "Light" version. I figured the resolution would be to use a browser like Atomic which allows for User Agent String modification to mimic Internet Explorer 6+.



My main issue I'm tasked to resolve - unfortunately which has no documentation - is to have 2 delegates have access to manage Calendar appointments for their Managers.



Details:

* Managers (2 separate managers - each have only 1 delagate)

* Delegates have either full or author permissions from their managers

- one Delegate receives the meeting invite ONLY while her manager doesn't see them.

* No issues accessing calendar or mailbox in Outlook 2007 on Exchange 2007.

* iPad 2 64GB 3G/WiFi models are all being used.

* 1 manager & his delegate each have: iPad 2, WinXP Laptop with Outlook 2007, and Blackberry via BES.

- in particular his delegate has both her own exchange account & her managers account.

* ALL users that have iPads are using exchange webmail settings - since I'm unsure the proper way to state the server.



Issue:

The Delegate that has her & her managers Exchange account on the iPad is the one that receives all Calendar invites (and her manager does NOT see them). She can receive the email in Mail on the iPad, we tap on the attachment icon for Calendar and we can select "Accept"/'Deny". The pop-up that shows the Meeting details shows its already accepted - for which in Calendar it shows as a light barf-coloured green (almost as if tentative) - yet we cannot actually "Accept" the Meeting request. Click on "Accept" only results in the error "Could not process the meeting request". Oddly enough we CAN "Deny" the Meeting. When trying to go directly into Calendar - same thing occurs. We've tried sending the meeting request from Outlook to the Manager, from Blackberry, even from another iPad user - same results.



Has anyone solved this?



PS: I've tried adding the Exchange server during setup on WLAN which fails, and iPad has NO application restrictions.

Any help or feedback would be MOST appreciated.

[Supa_Fly]

Has anyone on these boards used an iPad in a corporate or business setting and encountered this at all?

Can anyone assist even with a finger pointing to the answer (not the middle pls, hehe).

[pesos]

We have users on citrix and exchange - but no delegate setups - sorry! Perhaps try out os5 beta and see if there's any change - I am playing with it on my ipad2 and mail now supports flagging which is a nice addition...

-Wes

[Supa_Fly]

Originally Posted by pesos

We have users on citrix and exchange - but no delegate setups - sorry! Perhaps try out os5 beta and see if there's any change - I am playing with it on my ipad2 and mail now supports flagging which is a nice addition...

-Wes

Thanks. I'm still looking at a solution to change the exchange settings currently in use. Unfortunately I don't have $xxx dollars to spend on developer license to download iOS5 for iPad/iPhone - not to test without being sure; and no corp credit amex (I'm not that high up in the ranks).

Flagging is an incredible feature I'm seriously salivating over in iOS5 - I rely on this daily on my corp BB to come back to service/incident tickets for follow-up. I'm curious if these show up as tasks in the Calendar?

[pesos]

Honestly there is no reason anyone supporting iOS in the enterprise shouldn't have a dev account - it's only $99/year. Any company that can afford Exchange can afford that - you should be able to make a case for it to the powers that be easily if you have users you are officially supporting on this platform.

[Supa_Fly]

Originally Posted by pesos

Honestly there is no reason anyone supporting iOS in the enterprise shouldn't have a dev account - it's only $99/year. Any company that can afford Exchange can afford that - you should be able to make a case for it to the powers that be easily if you have users you are officially supporting on this platform.

We're not supporting yet trialing. Spending another $100 just to upgrade what should be there is not tough to swallow but tough to approach with a manager of old school style (he sees us as expendable and we should fear him with regards to our jobs; yet EVERYONE in the corporate office see us - all members as an asset).

So I'm left, currently, with trying a workable solution in 4.2.3.

[Geckotek]

I've had several issues with calendars in iOS using ActiveSync over the years.

The first question I think you need to answer is, does AS support the delegation features?

If it does, your second question should be, has Apple implemented that particular function of AS. Apple is infamous for only implementing a portion of AS. (In fact, Microsoft is doing the same w/ WP7).

I would also suggest discussing in some Exchange specific forums such as msexchange.org or perhaps on LinkedIn.


And I'm not sure I would consider delegate access as something that "should be there". It was designed for an assitant sitting in an office with Outlook running. Mobile support would have been an after-thought if it's supported at all.

[Supa_Fly]

Originally Posted by Geckotek

I've had several issues with calendars in iOS using ActiveSync over the years.

The first question I think you need to answer is, does AS support the delegation features?

If it does, your second question should be, has Apple implemented that particular function of AS. Apple is infamous for only implementing a portion of AS. (In fact, Microsoft is doing the same w/ WP7).

I would also suggest discussing in some Exchange specific forums such as msexchange.org or perhaps on LinkedIn.


And I'm not sure I would consider delegate access as something that "should be there". It was designed for an assitant sitting in an office with Outlook running. Mobile support would have been an after-thought if it's supported at all.

AS I believe supports Delegation features - at least I think so. I will take your suggestion and dig further on LinkedIn/msexchange.org ... I hope I can find a solution since our Exchange admin is on vacation until Monday (he really deserves it and not to be bothered). If I cannot find something then I'll engage him for a resolution.

Odd as this same issue occured on my personal iPhone 4 also running 4.3.3 and with the same two accounts. 1 possible resolution was that IF the alias of either of the two accounts was affected then this would cause the issue: but that doesn't apply.

And yes I'm expecting delegation as a feature to work, this is 2011 after all and we're increasingly becoming mobile. The fact that OWA supports it on IE browsers states at least outside of Outlook this works; thus I hope you're wrong about this being a restriction based on ActiveSync - I really hope so.

Many thanks for your suggestions I greatly appreciate it!! I really do.

[Lagmonster]

I am told active sync supports delegation, I will try to confirm after the weekend.

[Geckotek]

Yeah, did a little digging after I posted that and it seems it does. Question now is did Apple implement it?