From: Andrea Beesing <amb3>
Date: September 3, 2013 10:12:48 PM EDT
To: ITSG-DIRECTORS-L
Subject: Apple Mail discussion summary

Below is a summary of last week's discussion of Apple Mail support at the IT Directors meeting. Please let me know if I've missed any key points or captured inaccurately. Thanks.

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Apple Mail support discussion – summary

Background: The Service Desk has handled some cases recently where a user is suddenly unable to connect to Exchange Online following a move of his/her account among data centers in the cloud. This move can happen at any time and can be expected as part of normal operations. The most recent version of Apple Mail includes the “auto-discover” option which should ensure transparency during such moves.

In responding to this challenge CIT will:

• Continue to support latest two versions. Support consists of:

o   Documentation and Service Desk (SD) support  for configuring auto-discover where available

o   Documentation and SD support for configuring older version to connect to the new data center if disconnect occurs

• If reasonable efforts to restore functionality for users of the older version fail, the available alternatives are to switch to OWA or Outlook 2011, or upgrade to the most current version.
• Documentation and communications will raise awareness about this issue with Apple Mail and what users may encounter unexpectedly or during the O365 upgrade in October.  The strong recommendation will be to move to either OWA or Outlook 2011 from Apple Mail.

NB:  This is really the most serious in a series of problems users have encountered with Apple Mail and Exchange.

Follow-up questions for Andrea: 

• Reports of disconnect problems with the current version of Apple Mail
• Volume of Remedy tickets related problems with Apple Mail (if feasible)
• Data relating to clients currently in use (if possible)

--
Andrea Beesing
Asst Director, User Services and Support
Cornell Information Technologies
B06A CCC
(607) 254-7441
<amb3>