BIS user switching to BES--Any Tips?

[jbonnot03]

My company has recently given us the opportunity to connect to the BES on our personal devices for a one time set up fee. Without divulging all the details, I am in sales and we are technically self employed, so I welcome this access to my company calendar, email, etc. I have asked IT about restricted access and the such and was told that I would still have the same access I currently have. Basically, they are just going to push PIM and email and require a password.

Current Setup--
My company currently uses OWA for our company email, calendar, etc. Due to not being able to sync the bb with OWA, I don't use anything on OWA except email. With BES, I would like to start using all the added OTA features. I am currently using Google Calendar/sync for calendar on my bb and home desktop. For all the other PIM info, I use the DM at home.

I would like to make this transition as smooth as possible The first thing I am doing is a backup. My concerns are losing my contacts and calendar from my bb since my exchange account is blank in that data.

Questions--
1. Will I still be able to sync to DM at home as a backup?
2. Will all my current data on my bb be erased when synced with the blank exchange account?
3. Any pointers or "DO NOT DOS"?
4. Will I need to do anything to my DM at home to continue syncing with Outlook?
5. I know I need to delete my current OWA email account, when should I do this? Will it be OK to do this after I receive the Enterprise Activation "stuff"?

[Gringo Viejo y Feo]

If you value your privacy and personal client contacts, I would be hesitant. I have been in an "independent contractor" wired environment, and they will have access to everything you have in your BB. The less scrupulous will hire you to get your contacts on their servers, lay you off, and pass your clients to one of their established account managers. Try to find and interview some previous employees before embarking on this direction.

[gm85]

Privacy Issues aside, I'd like to know more about a BIS to BES transition. (sidenote: I am the network, email and BES administrator for my family's company). My Blackberry has been activated with our BES since day 1, but I will be migrating a co-worker from BIS to BES so I'd like see what people have to say.
Especially:

• When the handheld is activated, are the contacts on the Blackberry synced with the enterprise email account (both-ways), or are the contacts wiped on the handheld and then pushed down from the email server?
  
• Also, during a BIS to BES transition, I understand I will have to delete the employee's business email account under BIS. When the business account is deleted from BIS, do the messages (associated with the account) remain on the handheld, or are they deleted off the handheld?

Thanks

[jbonnot03]

I guess I should follow up with the answers and my experiences.

Originally Posted by jbonnot03

Questions--
1. Will I still be able to sync to DM at home as a backup?It does appear to allow backup.
2. Will all my current data on my bb be erased when synced with the blank exchange account?Nothing was erased--I did have issues getting my calendar onto BES though
3. Any pointers or "DO NOT DOS"?
4. Will I need to do anything to my DM at home to continue syncing with Outlook?Anything set up to sync wirelessly with BES, won't sync via USB through DM
5. I know I need to delete my current OWA email account, when should I do this? Will it be OK to do this after I receive the Enterprise Activation "stuff"?Deleted after and had no problems.

On the calendar issue--
I was syncing with Google calendar. I erased the Google calendar service book from my bb. This dumped all the entries into Default calendar. I finally was able to get all these entries into my BES account.
Cleared all entries.
Changed wireless sync to off.
Synced calendar with Outlook.
Turned Wireless sync back on and all entries made it to the BES.

On contacts--
I don't remember having any problems with this. As far as I remember, the contacts synced without any problems. All contacts from bb went to BES.

[gm85]

Hi Justin
Thanks for the follow-up (did not realize that your post was from a month-ago).

That's good info to know and will make my life easier when I set this employee up next week.