Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Blackberry Users Setting Out of Office in Outlook 2003 Won't Update on Exchange 2007

There is a known issue that I decided to post on because there seems to be a relatively small amount of information out regarding it.  The problem is blackberry users configuring their out of office in Outlook 2003, but the change doesn't show up on OWA.  This can cause old out of office settings to be used as well, and only seems to apply when the user has the unique cocktail of Outlook 2003 and a blackberry that connect to an Exchange 2007 server.

The known work-arounds for this issue are to use Outlook 2007, or run Outlook with the /cleanrules switch.  You will, of course, want to export your rules first just in case.

Unfortunately RIM does not support the OOO feature (a phone call from our NOC to RIM discovered this) which was technically re-written in Exchange 2007. They supposedly released a fix in a service pack, but the BES in this case had the service pack which does not increase my faith in RIM despite the love I harbor for its constant desire for attention (reboots).

3 comments:

Bodlar said...

Thanks a bunch for this fix. I couldn't find any ideas out there for this aside from your blog. /cleanrules worked for me to resolve this problem too.

Unknown said...

I can confirm that this happens even if you use Outlook 2007 with Exchange 2007. I am also using a Blackberry with OS 4.5. Still happening. You can turn on or off the Out of Office Assitant, but if you try to modify the message, it will not take on your mailbox.

Joshua Raymond said...

In my particular case, users on OL2K7 didn't experience the issue. Good to know about your experience going forward, however.