Microsoft ActiveSync Setup - Read First

Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync is available as an optional add-on to your email account. Unlike the other synchronization methods, Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync uses direct push technology to sync email, calendars, and contacts to your EPhost Webmail Account. Once you have purchased and activated the EPhost Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync subscription your device will need to be configured.

Activating your License:

Thank you for your purchase of a Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync subscription. If you did not do so during purchase, please email support@ephost.com with the email address(s) you would like to activate. You may activate 1 email address per license you have. We can only activate actual email addresses and not email aliases, forwards or mailing list addresses. 

Enabling Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync (EPhost Push Email) on your Device:

Please follow the instructions for your device below. Please read the remaining instructions below BEFORE enabling on your device for the best possible experience.

iPhone /  iPad
Android
Blackberry
Windows Mobile

Synchronizing Email:

Synchronizing your email using Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync is easy. There are no risks to your email but a there are a few items to keep in mind.

1. The technology behind Microsoft ActiveSync uses the same setup as a Microsoft Exchange email account on your device.
2. The Microsoft ActiveSync Email feature is different way to download your email and is not an application that you need to download or install on your device or computer. 
3. All of your devices should be configured to use the new Microsoft ActiveSync service. You should not try to use Microsoft ActiveSync and POP or IMAP concurrently.
4. At the time of this writing you can only have 1 Microsoft ActiveSync Email account setup on a single device at any given time. You CAN have multiple devices connect to the same EPhost Microsoft ActiveSync account.(e.g. iPhone and iPad). 

Synchronizing Contact and Calendar Items:

When synching contacts or calendar items you will want to consider several important items first. We suggest waiting to synchronize contacts and calendars until you have read this document considered all of the options. Before implementing any of these scenarios please take a backup of your contacts and calendar items in your device, EPhost Webmail and your email client (MS Outlook) to ensure you will not accidentally lose any of your contacts or calendar items.

These instructions apply specifically to the iPhone and iPad which we used during testing. It may or may not apply exactly to a Windows Mobile, Android or Blackberry device. Please read the KB articles listed below for your device. We would appreciate your corrections to our information if you are using a Windows Mobile, Droid or Blackberry device.

We are providing only a high-level overview of things to consider when synching contacts and calendar items as there are many ways to accomplish the same thing. This is especially complicated by trying to get your desktop email client (e.g. MS Outlook) to synchronize too.

EPhost implementation of Microsoft ActiveSync, synchronizes email, contacts and calendar items in your EPhost Webmail with your mobile device. When you use Microsoft ActiveSync, it will create a new contact group and new calendar group on your device (at least on the iPhone and iPad) and existing items on your phone are untouched (not synchronized with EPhost webmail). Future contacts and calendar items you add will synchronize with your EPhost Webmail account or with your PC depending on which group you add it to. In Apple’s iOS you can select a “default” contact group and a “default” calendar group for items created outside of a group. If you have the same contact in your EPhost Webmail account and on your phone you will get duplicate entries. The iPhone seems to handle duplicate entries very well so it’s not a big problem. In fact, it may be ideal (see below).

When adding the account the first time be wary of any warnings like “delete phone contacts” or “delete phone calendar items” and only do so if these contacts and calendar items are ALREADY in your EPhost Webmail Account. If not, just hit cancel and don’t worry too much about the “Duplicate” items warning. It would be better to have two of the same contacts- rather than none accidentally.

To get existing phone contacts to synchronize they will need to be moved to your EPhost Webmail account one way or another. Some suggestions include:

1. Backing up your mobile device with Outlook and using and then use the Smartermail Sync tool in your EPhost webmail account to move contacts and calendar items to webmail. See “Settings” in your EPhost Webmail account.
2. Backing up your mobile device with Yahoo or Gmail and using and then using the Migration tool in your EPhost Webmail account to move contacts and calendar items to your EPhost Webmail account. See “Settings” in your EPhost Webmail account.
3. Backing up your phone contacts elsewhere and exporting those contacts as vCards or a CSV file then importing into EPhost Webmail using the import feature. See “Import” button under the appropriate section in EPhost Webmail.

Possible Synchronization Scenarios

Before implementing any of these scenarios please take a backup of your contacts and calendar items in your device, EPhost Webmail and your email client (MS Outlook) to ensure you will not accidentally lose any of your contacts or calendar items accidentally.

If you would like to keep your existing phone contacts and calendar items separate from your business contacts and calendar items.

This is the easiest way to setup everything. Contacts and calendar items can be created in a specific group (webmail or PC groups) and the synchronization would take place in the appropriate group accordingly. The downside is that if you create the same contact or calendar item in both groups and you are viewing “All Groups” in your device you would see duplicate entries on your device. This is usually mitigated by deleting all contacts and calendar items in EPhost Webmail or your device before enabling Microsoft ActiveSync (formally known as EPhost Push Email) (caution do not delete both). Assuming you avoid adding the same contact or calendar item to both groups in the future then you are all set. Note, you can use the “Add to Outlook” feature in Webmail so you can add a contact or calendar item in Outlook which will synch automatically with webmail and consequently your devices. When using the “Add to Outlook” feature some things are not supported such as the ability to attach a photo to the contact and have it synchronize.

If you would like to have only one set of contacts and calendar items on all devices and webmail.

The trick here is to get your contacts and calendar items in webmail first, then add the Microsoft ActiveSync setup to your device. If you are 100% sure you have your contacts and calendar items in EPhost Webmail then it would be safe to delete your phone contacts and calendar items when setting up Microsoft ActiveSync on your device.

You elect not to synch contacts and calendar items.

You can choose not to synchronize your contacts and calendar items if you prefer to avoid the complication. You will still enjoy Microsoft ActiveSync and hassle-free email sending.

You would like to also synchronize your MS Outlook with your EPhost Webmail Account too.

Your EPhost Webmail Account includes a couple of tools to synchronize your contacts and calendar items with Microsoft Outlook. There are two overall options: “Add to Outlook” and the “SmarterMail Sync Tool”. Please see the EPhost Webmail Help feature for additional details. Please exercise caution when using the “SmarterMail Sync Tool” as it is possible to accidentally delete or duplicate contacts and calendar items.

To synchronize your email in MS Outlook your only option is to connect with IMAP instead of POP3. IMAP downloads a copy of the messages directly from the server so your mail is always kept on the server and not really on your local computer.  I think you will find that IMAP in MS Outlook 2016 works much better than Outlook 2003/2007/2010.

Also See: Microsoft ActiveSync KBs | Email Settings POP3 / IMAP | Check Email Online (Webmail) | Email Troubleshooting

Contact Support

If you are still having issues, please contact us for further help.
1-877-EPHOST1 | support@ephost.com