[android] Email Setup

[LeMarchand]

Head has a new 'droid and wants his school email set up on it. Is the screen below normal? The permissions seem excessive to me.

 

[Geoff]

If this is an activesync connection to an exchange server, then yes. You are using an enterprise feature and as such it's 'normal' for an enterprise admin to have a great degree of control over the end device (compliance with corporate policy, legal compliance requirements and data protection).

[LeMarchand]

If this is an activesync connection to an exchange server, then yes. You are using an enterprise feature and as such it's 'normal' for an enterprise admin to have a great degree of control over the end device (compliance with corporate policy, legal compliance requirements and data protection).

 

Yes, it is. Thought it might be that, but not happy as the email is third party. Oh well, he'll have to pray they don't wipe his phone in error!

[Geoff]

If you are just using it for email, there's no need to use activesync (you only need that for calendaring and contacts syncing). If you can get hold of the IMAP / SMTP details then that will work just fine and without the onerous permissions.

[LeMarchand]

If you are just using it for email, there's no need to use activesync (you only need that for calendaring and contacts syncing). If you can get hold of the IMAP / SMTP details then that will work just fine and without the onerous permissions.

 

He wants his contacts syncing, but more to the point the supplier (for some reason) is pretty obstructive when it comes to giving out details - I've asked for SMTP details in the past. If it was up to me I'd ditch 'em and go elsewhere but some members of SMT have an inexplicable love for the service.

Edited November 18, 2015 by LeMarchand
Typo

[jmak]

The onerous permissions are there for the school's protection. It gives you the option to wipe confidential data in the event the phone is lost or the employee leaves the organisation. Our Exchange based mail requires this. Most employees just tick OK without reading it. I have my work email on my phone and am perfectly happy that the organisation could wipe it if I lose it. It would save me a job.

[LeMarchand]

Strangely, I didn't get asked for all that when I tried again this afternoon. It's a personal device rather than a "work" one, and as the power to perform the resets etc is in the hands of the third party supplier (though I guess they would have - eventually - complied with any such requests from us) I wasn't keen. Wonder if they turned off the need for all that, or just the warning page...

[Geoff]

Once you've setup the activesync once for a particular deviceID, exchange remembers.

[Arthur]

the power to perform the resets etc is in the hands of the third party supplier

For future reference, some third-party e-mail apps such as Nine enable you to select either device or application-level security when you setup the Exchange account. With the latter only the synced e-mails, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes will be erased rather than the whole Android device.

 

http://vgy.me/WUX9Uv.png

[john]

On the other side of the fence, those controls are there to protect the school, what if the head was dismissed suddenly or he lost his phone? The remote wipe is a great feature for that, we enforce that on our staff if they add a personal device we reserve the right to hit that button should we need to in the case they loose something or the door is shown to them to clear our confidential data, if they don't like that then don't pair your personal hardware to the company system. I raised this when I was in the education sector that if you do it we have that, we never needed to but it ensures they don't go away with all the archived emails of confidential stuff that shouldn't leave the school.

[LeMarchand]

Once you've setup the activesync once for a particular deviceID, exchange remembers.

 

I backed ot before I OK'd it the first time, though...

 

On the other side of the fence, those controls are there to protect the school

 

I hear you, but the school doesn't have direct access to those controls in this case.

Edited November 18, 2015 by LeMarchand
Need a new keyboard. "U" not working well.

[Arthur]

On the other side of the fence, those controls are there to protect the school

Indeed. I suppose the main issue with the application-level security is that e-mail attachments could be saved outside of the app so they wouldn't be erased when the account was.

 

If the data was contained solely within the app or a separate work persona - as with Android for Work - there would be less of a concern because you could ensure that all of the school-related data was erased.

[jmak]

The Divide app (which I have in my phone) gives a half way house - it appears as a separate device on the management console, so only that partition of my phone would be wiped.

 

As above, if staff don't like it, we're not forcing them to have school email on their phones.

 

I can see where you're coming from with not wanting to hand control over to the third party...

[MatthewL]

As far as I am aware any user with access to OWA can do into their own options and wipe the device if they loose it. Looking at the above posts I would suggest its a Exchange based account.

[fiendishlyclever]

For future reference, some third-party e-mail apps such as Nine enable you to select either device or application-level security when you setup the Exchange account. With the latter only the synced e-mails, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes will be erased rather than the whole Android device.

 

http://vgy.me/WUX9Uv.png

 

I use Nine to pick up email for work as I wanted to keep it separate from my Gmail account on the same phone. It supports tasks etc too and the security model was a nice bonus. It's a great app and well supported.

 

I live in hope that mobile outlook will get near the desktop version in terms of usefulness