HTC Evo, Zimbra, and sync

[jbuell]

I don't want to re-open the can of worms about what is and isn't working and which vendor is responsible, but I could use some advice. The people at the highest level of the company I work for have started getting HTC Evos, but seem to think that using Exchange ActiveSync as built into the phone with our Zimbra server running 5.0.23 is inadequate. Let me try to explain: They can send/receive e-mail, and they can see a single calendar, but they would like to 1) see multiple calendars and 2) get contacts. What can I do as the administrator for this? Do we need to upgrade to Zimbra 6? Are there settings I'm overlooking either in the Zimbra 5 admin console or on the phone? Thanks in advance for any advice and suggestions.

[ewilen]

For multiple calendars, it's most likely a limitation of your phone. See Bug 10099 – MobileSync Multiple Calendars and Addressbooks for Zimbra's position on this. Also compare Multiple Calendars - PPCGeeks (this buttresses the point that the limitation is in the phone, not in Zimbra). Perhaps with Android 2.2 you'll get this feature.

You could vote for Bug 8157 – Support calendar and contact folder with Zimbra Mobile and/or Bug 7256 – zimbra mobile sync should allow you to choose calendar, but I doubt you'll ever see them implemented in Zimbra. Note, though, that a comment in 10099 mentions a possible workaround with Z-Push (about which, search the forums).

I also doubt there's anything in ZCS 6 vs. ZCS 5 that would affect the availability of contacts on the phone. ActiveSync contacts "just work" e.g. on iPhone with Zimbra. But what features exactly are supported on the Evo, whether they need any patches, how to set them up--those all seem like questions for the phone manufacturer and/or carrier. It looks like these people have had mixed success using Evo with Exchange: http://community.sprint.com/baw/thre...reqsorting=dec

Depending on what you find, and your timeframe for a solution, you might want to investigate Touchdown, Moonrug Mobile, or RoadSync.