Web Activity Logging

[1fldave]

I am in need of some help. I have a small BES environment running BES 4.1 with about 140 users. Most of which are Sprint 8830s provided by my organization.

Recently our bean counters came to me and wanted me to look up where several people were going on the web with their BB device as they had greatly exceeded their data plan.

I looked in the logs I was aware of, PhoneCallLog, PINLog, SMSLog, and I saw no web entries in there. The PIN and SMS were actually blank.

Where do I turn on web logging on my BES?

Is this a log that could grow out of control if left unattended?

Thanks in advance for the help.

[CanuckBB]

The browser is not logged.

[1fldave]

Is there any way to track data usage?

[CanuckBB]

Yes and no.

You can't truly track usage, but you can put restrictions in place to have an idea where it's going.

1) disable the ability to have BIS email. That makes sure that all email data is from the corporate account.

2) force all internet browsing through the BES, and have a web filtering app on a server. All BB surfing will be logged under BESAdmin. While that does not tell you individual usage, it gives you quantitative proof of browsing by the BB users.

3) restrict allowed apps. Cut down on data hungry apps.

[1fldave]

Thanks for the help CanuckBB. I really appreciate it.

Could you kinda point me in the right direction on how you would implement these suggestions? We have never really managed the devices on our BES so I am not that familiar with tweaking it. We just set it and forget it and add users.

I may not be able to implement any of them due to politics but I would like to have options to present to the powers that be and each's consequences.

One problem I may run into is that not all of our devices on our corporate BES are owned by us. We allow users to purchase their own device and then connect it to our BES for access to their corporate Exchange mail. So those devices I would want to exclude from data monitoring.

Currently we provide web filtering on an organizational basis so if users inadvertantly use the browser icon specifically labeled with our organizations name for intranet access they get filtered web access. If they use the browser icon they get unfiltered access to the web as they circumvent the BES.

Would using user groups allow me to segregate users who we dont (or do) need to monitor?

Also you talked about all BB surfing would be logged under BESAdmin. Would that logging be in whatever webfilter app is used or in the BES management logs somewhere?

Thanks again for your replies.

[CanuckBB]

It's all implemented through IT policies. You apply policies to a user, so yes, you could not apply the policy to a private device.

The web log will appear in the filter app logs.