BES & BIS Migration Help

[hodge1984]

Hi all,

I'm very new to BB's so please bear with me here.
I'm the IT administrator for my company and have inherited a bit of a mess from the previous IT guy.

Current situation:
3rd party hosted exchange server
2 blackberry users are using the 3rd Party's hosted BES platform.
3 blackberry users are using BIS but have no idea how they got it.

The 5 users are split between AT&T in the US, T-mobile and Vodafone in the UK.

What I'm trying to do:
I've been tasked with migrating our email accounts to Microsoft's Exchange Online, who also support a hosted BES platform. So i'd like to get the 3 BIS users using BES, as well as migrating the 2 current BES users.

The problem is, all these users are remote, so I don't have access to the devices, and I have no idea how to go about this.

How do I migrate the existing BES users?
How do I "upgrade" the BIS users to BES?
Can I do most/all of this remotely?

Sorry if this is a bit of an epic thread, any help would be greatly appreciated!

[TheScionicMan]

Originally Posted by hodge1984

How do I migrate the existing BES users?

Once the users are on the new email server, you should be able to simply set up a BES acct for them and activate the BBs on the new platform. There are ways to transfer accounts between BES servers, but that's usually within the same domain, I think. Not sure if that would work for your hosted setups and for 5 users, not worth the hassle, IMO. The BB may want to do a wipe before Activating if it sees it as a different user, so you may want to do a backup of the device beforehand so you can restore things if needed.

Originally Posted by hodge1984

How do I "upgrade" the BIS users to BES?

This is based on the carrier. You'll need to call your phone service provider for those lines and have them changed from BIS accounts to BES accounts. Expect to pay more. Once they have BES service on their lines, you just add them to the BES server and Activate.

Originally Posted by hodge1984

Can I do most/all of this remotely?

All the setup is done on the BES server, with the exception of the Enterprise Activation on the handheld. It's a pretty simple process to lead someone through. Options->Advanced Options->Enterprise Activation. They just type in their email addy and the pword you assign and it does its thing.

That should get you started. Post up if you have any further questions.

[hodge1984]

Thanks, thats perfect.

I don't really need to migrate the user as such, I was more interested how to connect the device to another BES, but i guess I can just wipe the device and start again.

Thanks again.