Setting Up ActiveSync On My W960i

"Aing Bangsat"

Setting Up ActiveSync On My W960i (long)

If you are considering getting a Sony Ericsson W960i of another UIQ 3.0 phone and you want to use Direct Push email or ActiveSync but you are not sure what in involved then this article may help you to know what to expect.
ActiveSync allows you have your latest Email, Calendar and Contacts to be always available and up to date on your phone.
ActiveSync is responsible for downloading the data to your phone. Your existing applications for Email, Calendar and Contacts are then used to view the data. ActiveSync will then upload any changes to your Exchange Server.


The most important thing to know is that to use ActiveSync you MUST use a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 or later for your email.

Sony Ericsson have been nice enough to bundle ActiveSync with the W960i free of charge. The screenshot above shows how ActiveSync looks on a Sony Ericsson UIQ 3.0 phone
The actual ActiveSync product is really a program called RoadSync which is produced by a company called DataViz http://www.dataviz.com.
Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync is a protocol developed by Microsoft which enables a remote device to talk directly to MS Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 or MS Exchange Server 2007. This means that your W960i will connect directly to your Exchange Server and it will not use any intermediate server.
Obviously the connection over the Internet is made through any necessary routers or firewalls.
The most obvious implication is that your email service MUST use Microsoft Exchange Server and your Exchange Server MUST have the necessary available connections to the Internet and the ActiveSync connections may be in addition to the standard SMTP and POP3 connections that email servers use.

The About screen shows the version of ActiveSync supplied with the W960i.
The SE W960i uses Symbian OS v9.1, UIQ 3.0. Sony Ericsson bundles ActiveSync 2.015 with the W960i which according to the Sony Ericsson website is the latest version but if you need another copy then it is available on the website as a free of charge download.
The version of ActiveSync supplied with the W960i is Version 2.015 (342).
According to the DataViz website the equivalent product to ActiveSync is called RoadSync and the current version is 2.003 - Released September 25, 2007.
Note that RoadSync for Symbian UIQ 3.1 is NOT compatible with Symbian UIQ 2.0 smartphones (Sony Ericsson P900, P910, and Motorola A1000). Similarly, RoadSync for Symbian UIQ 2.0 is NOT compatible with UIQ 3.1 smartphones.

The Server Tab allows you to specify your server connection and to enter your user name, password, server name and domain name.

Use the Schedule Tab to specify how frequently your email will synchronise with your Exchange Server.
Select the Enable Push checkbox to turn on push email and have your email synchronised on demand. If you select Enable Push then you are warned that your Exchange Server 2003 must have Service Pack 2 or later installed.
If you don't use push email then you can choose a schedule of every 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, 12 hours and manual. You can also chose which types of data to synchronise from Email, Calendar and Contacts. If you select Calendar or Contacts then you are warned that turning on Calendar and/or Contacts data during scheduled sync may result in much longer sync times.

The Mail Tab is used to specify how long email is retained on your phone. You can choose 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks and 1 month.
Use Email Size to set how much the size of the email to be downloaded. You can choose 1/2 KB, 1 KB, 5KB and All. Most of the time you only use your phone to read the first part of an email so you can specify that only the first part of the email. The email client allows you to download the rest of the email although I have not had much success with this feature.
You can specify to reply with history and you can add a signature. I use a signature that explains that I an using mobile email so the recipient knows why my reply may be brief and perhaps a little terse.

The Calendar Tab allows you to specify the date range for calendar entries. You can choose All, 2 weeks, 1 month and 6 months.
My impression is that all future calendar entries are synchronised and the date range specifies how far back in time to keep entries on your phone.

The Contacts Tab is used to enable the syncing of Contacts.

The Lock Tab is used to turn on Corporate Lock.
According to Help, Corporate lock activates after a pre-determined period of inactivity and requiring a password. I don't use it myself but assume that once the corporate lock has activated you have to enter a password to continue reading your email.

The Advance Tab allows you to turn on extra logging which can be useful when trying to diagnose connection problems with your Exchange Server.
You can also turn on Use SSL. SSL (Secure Server Link) uses an SSL Certificate to encrypt the data transferred between your phone and your Exchange Server. Using SSL is certainly a good idea which I recommend but so far I have not been able to get ActiveSync to work with SSL. The problem could be becuase I use self-signed certificates with my Exchange Server so perhaps my W960i does not trust me...

The Chose Data Connection selector allows to chose what data connection group will be used by ActiveSync.
The list of groups displayed is dependent on your connection configuration. Each group can contain one or more accounts. Some points to consider are to use a data connection which does not use your service providers WAP connection and to use a WLAN (or WiFi) account as the first account so that you will connect using WLAN if the service is available and connect by 3G when you are away from a WLAN connection.

Once ActiveSync is configured it will soon connect to your Exchange Server and your latest Email, Calendar and Contacts will be downloaded to your phone.

ActiveSync delivers the data to your phone but you use your excising Email, Calendar and Contacts applications to view the data.