If you’ve made the choice to go with BIS over BES and are still confused as to how to set your email up then hopefully this will help.
In the UK you will have connected your BlackBerry via T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone or O2. The first thing you need to do is visit your network’s BlackBerry web client page:
T-Mobile
www.instantemail.t-mobile.co.uk
Orange
https://bis.eu.blackberry.com/html?brand=orangeuk
Vodafone
www.mobileemail.vodafone.net
O2
www.o2email.co.uk
It’s important when you first turn on your new device , that you skip the email set-up wizard as the web client gives you a lot more flexibility when adding, removing and editing email accounts. If you try to set it up on the device, even if you don’t complete the set up, the PIN (which is the unique BlackBerry identification number) will be classed as allocated and you won’t be able to set up the web account.
Once you have arrived at the web address for your network (see above) you must click on the Create New Account button:
Please note that before you create your account you must have the sim card in the device, have it switched on and either GPRS,EDGE or 3G in upper case at the top, near the signal meter. This notifies the BlackBerry system that the device is connected and has a BlackBerry data account (BIS).
Next, agree to the terms and on the next page you need to enter your PIN and IMEI codes. These can be found on the box your device came in and can also be found by going to Options>Status in the main menu.
Enter the codes and hit Continue. If successful you will be prompted to choose a user name and password. If the user name is not taken you will be directed in to the main web client area, if it has been taken you will be prompted to choose a different user name.
Once inside the web client you will see two options for adding email accounts. The top one is for your existing accounts like Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo etc plus maybe you have your own POP email account, this can be added here as well and the smart wizard usually only requires the email address and password.
The bottom option is to set up BlackBerry email addresses.
Any emails sent to a BlackBerry email address are received within seconds rather than minutes and the BlackBerry servers are very reliable. If you use the traditional (top) method with a POP email account, the BlackBerry will be logging in to your mailbox every few minutes to drag emails to the device. Now problems can occur if your server is down (say for maintenance etc) and also if Outlook is open on your desktop PC and has downloaded and deleted emails from the server before the BlackBerry system has grabbed a copy you won’t get them on the device.
Now here is what I always do, and recommend my clients to do as well;
Set up a BlackBerry email address, once created you can go in and edit your display name. You also need to change the “Reply To” email address to your normal email address and save it. Then, in your main email account’s control panel, set up a forwarding rule so that a copy of your emails is forwarded to the BlackBerry email address that you just created. If you are running Windows Small Business Server without web access then read this article to find out how to set the forwarding rule.
This now means that your emails arrive in seconds and when you write an email or reply to one that you have received, it will look like it’s been sent from your main email address. In effect, the BlackBerry email address is just a “middle man” to make the system run smoothly. You also don’t suffer from invalidated email accounts on the BlackBerry because the server was down.
I hope that this helps to make your BIS set up a bit easier and keep reading for more tips.
David
David Allen BlackBerry Tips
