Emails not synching in Boxer.....

[HERNDONBRENT]

Anyone run into an issue where users emails are not auto synch to Boxer?  To get them to sync they seem to have to go into Boxer first and then with the app open they wiil start to come in.  Getting the idea this started happening after PIE update. 

[Boe_K]

Herndon I personally don't believe this to be a Android Pie issue as we've seen issues with Boxer sync breaking at random for the past 2 years now. I run into on Samsung devices more so then any other phone but I've had it happen first hand on both my Pixel XL and Pixel 3 XL. After the latest 5.5.0.3 update I've had a few users state that setting the app to manually pull email after a set period (example 15 mins) no longer seems to work correctly for them either. My director is one of the people having this issue and went so far as to unenroll and re-enroll his device this morning so he is going to give it a couple days and if it breaks again get me logs so I can get a ticket open.

Honestly management is starting to get frustrated with Boxer and has tasked me with exploring other options to see what we can come up with. When Boxer works its great but lately it seems like all the development focus has been on back end security features instead of UI Polish and reliability and since we still continue to have random sync issues they want a fall back plan in case things get worse.

[HERNDONBRENT]

Boe thanks for the info.  Funny you say your management has asked you to look at other options because my boss has asked me to do the same thing.  Let me know if you come across any good MDM options.  I was going to look at Good Work.  That is really the only other one I have heard of in the past.  I have had about 3 people come to me in the past 4 days about this issue.  I only sugget PIE because most of these phones have been Galaxy S8 and they just recently got the PIE update..

[Tbibb123]

Herndon are you using ENS with boxer? It is now a requirement to use ENS to auto push emails in the background, otherwise the expected behavior is that will not happen until you open the app.

[HERNDONBRENT]

Terry - I am not aware of needing to utilize ENS.  I work with AirWatch Tech Support in helping me setup a profile for a Work Profile.  We install the Intelligent Hub and then ultimately Boxer from the Google Play Store.  I do not see where it discusses using ESN. 

[Tbibb123]

check out this link, it gives some detail about it.
https://support.workspaceone.com/articles/360009691053-New-email-notification-requirements-in-VMware...

[Boe_K]

Herndon I have to agree with Terry if you are not using ENS that is most likely at least most if not all of your problem. We won't be moving off AirWatch/Worksapce one as we are a big VMware customer but we are testing the capabilities of other mail apps that support MDM/EMM management. Honestly if MS would ever allow Outlook to be fully managed and to show up as a managed app we would probably switch as it seems to be much more reliable in our testing. Prior to us moving to a managed solution a lot of us in IT used a mail client called Nine which also happens to have a Nine for Work version designed for Android Enterprise so I'm starting to look into that as well.

Honestly I like Boxer and when it works its great like I said our biggest issue is that we have always had reliability issues with it and while it has improved some its still an issue on a semi regular basis. After having a recent road map call with them it seems like most of the features we were really interested have been removed so you add that in with the fact that the polish and reliability doesn't really match that of the competition and its getting hard and hard for me to convince management to stick with it.

Hopefully their next couple of releases will start to correct that and if so then I think management will stay on Boxer but if we don't see in improved soon I fear they are going to start having me work on moving our 3000+ users to something else and that doesn't sound fun to me.

[HERNDONBRENT]

I am in my AirWatch Console and I am trying to EDIT the Site URL step but it does not let me edit any text field.  I am trying to do this from my Parent OG.  I have a Child OG (which is where my Android for Work profile is configured). 

1. Select the required Organization Group and navigate to Groups & Settings > All Settings.
2. From the System column, select Advanced, and then select Site URLs.
3. (On-premises only) From the Site URLs values page, select Cloud Notification Service URL text box and provide
https://cns.awmdm.com/nws/notify/apns.

[HERNDONBRENT]

According to the tech at AirWatch they said the following........If you would like to configure ENS On Premise, it requires to configure the settings within the console and get the service installed on a server located on DMZ which requires access to your Exchange server on the EWS.

If anyone has configured ENS, do you remember having to do this?  Just seems crazy to have to take some component of AirWatch and have to install it on a separate server insteading of being able to do it all on the AirWatch server.  

We are on premise.  We have never had this done even prior to Boxer and Work Profile.  I get the idea that we need this and has probably been a big cause over the past year or two where synching is not occuring effectively. 

[ChristopherFloy]

Herndon,
My command did have to do this but we run iPhone which apparently can't sync e-mails in the background (Limitation to the iPhone IOS). We installed this other service on another server we had on the DMZ to atleast get notifications on the phones working so people could know when they get new e-mails. They still needed to let the e-mails download once within boxer.

[NathanN]

So far we are at 5000+ boxer users and growing fast guess is end of year double that number if not more.

Out of all the user 3 have issues with Boxer not syncing.  All 3 just upgraded there Android OS to 9.0 and then the issue started.   what OS version are these phones on? 

[Boe_K]

Hey Nathaniel just curious are you using ENS on prem or Cloud? I've personally run into it where I open Boxer up and it tells me their is no connection (little bar pops up at the bottom) and if I give it a few minutes it resolves it self and works again but just wondering if this is maybe something caused by the cloud service?

[NathanN]

We are SAAS based AW with o365 in the Cloud. 

Using Cert auth if that helps any.

[Boe_K]

Is does actually we've actually talked with your company in the past quite a bit as we both have similar View setups 🙂 Currently we are still on Exchange 2010 looking to go to O365 soon so maybe that will make things more consistent for us time will tell.

[NathanN]

I hope so.  So far we have liked the move coming off Inbox.  We are set to move 6000 Iphones to boxer off native mail in the next month.  we have a couple bugs there we need to work though but we caused them. 

[Boe_K]

Dang you guys have a much larger environment then us I would love to chat offline about the decision to move off native to Boxer and how you convinced management to do so. I've been trying to do that from the start but so far they keep coming back to users are familiar with native and they don't want to upset them 😞

[NathanN]

We are just shy of 20,000 devices.  and the plan is to double in a year or so, but we will see.  I will say it took over a year and a half to get this far.  and if you need help etc just ask.  it is a uphill battle..

[Boe_K]

Nate that sounds like a full time job 🙂 

[HERNDONBRENT]

Anyone have any knowledge on the SSL Pinning configuration for Email Notification Services?  I am trying to do the steps to configure but the SSL Pinning thing is a bit greek to me.

[HERNDONBRENT]

I am trying to follow the instructions, but I am stuck on STEP 7.  I do not get that prompt.  I do not see where I can download the XML config file.

6. To enable Email Notification, select Yes and then select Save.
After the settings are saved, the Download Configuration option is displayed.
7. Select Download Configuration.
8. From the Download email configuration page, select Certificate Password text box and provide a password to
download the configuration.
The password you provide for downloading the configuration should again be provided during ENS installation
9. Select Confirm Password text box, provide the password to confirm and select Download.
Save the archived .xml file for completing the ENS installation.