No Android Search for Corporate / MS Exchange Email? TouchDown / other apps?

[f-s]

I bought the Galaxy Nexus and connected my three email accounts via Android 4.  Two personal email accounts (Yahoo and Google) work flawlessly and have adequate functionality.  But my corporate email, which is based on MS Exchange, has no search functionality!! Is this for real?

I installed the trial / fully functional version of TouchDown by NitroDesk, which is (one of?) the most downloaded corporate email apps.  It is highly customizable, but I don't have time to futz around with it any longer than I already have.  It looks great and can search, but it has weird issues:

1. If an email is sent to multiple people, I can't see all the addressees,
2. It has preset "Quick Replies" which can theoretically be inserted into emails, but I cannot figure out how,
3. It keeps refreshing my contacts and that drains the battery (yes, I can disable the contacts refresh, but my Blackberry did it on the fly with no issues),
4. It has made my other apps sluggish -- e.g. when the phone rings, it shows the incoming phone number (not the contact name, which is in my contacts folder).

Any quick tips -- either on the native Android app or TouchDown?  Any other apps you might recommend that work well with MS Exchange?

Love the phone otherwise.  But if I can't search my corporate email, I'll be switching to the iPhone (if not Blackberry?).

[demmo86rt]

Have you tried menu>settings>search>searchable items?  (This is based off of my Rezound running Gingerbread, may be different on the GNex)  This gives you options for what can be searched for from the search app and not everything is checked by default.

[curtterp]

f-s wrote:

I bought the Galaxy Nexus and connected my three email accounts via Android 4.  Two personal email accounts (Yahoo and Google) work flawlessly and have adequate functionality.  But my corporate email, which is based on MS Exchange, has no search functionality!! Is this for real?

I installed the trial / fully functional version of TouchDown by NitroDesk, which is (one of?) the most downloaded corporate email apps.  It is highly customizable, but I don't have time to futz around with it any longer than I already have.  It looks great and can search, but it has weird issues:

1. If an email is sent to multiple people, I can't see all the addressees,
2. It has preset "Quick Replies" which can theoretically be inserted into emails, but I cannot figure out how,
3. It keeps refreshing my contacts and that drains the battery (yes, I can disable the contacts refresh, but my Blackberry did it on the fly with no issues),
4. It has made my other apps sluggish -- e.g. when the phone rings, it shows the incoming phone number (not the contact name, which is in my contacts folder).

Any quick tips -- either on the native Android app or TouchDown?  Any other apps you might recommend that work well with MS Exchange?

Love the phone otherwise.  But if I can't search my corporate email, I'll be switching to the iPhone (if not Blackberry?).

You can see if you can add the Corporate Email to searchable Items. To get there, press on the Google search bar at the top of the screen, then press menu (three stacked dots), then press Settings, then press Searchable Items

Touchdown

1. When I send an email to multiple people, I can see 9 address's, and if I have more, the screen does scroll up/down to see the rest..
2. To use quick replies, when you are at your inbox, long press the email you want to reply to on quick replies. That will bring up a menu and quick replies are the first item in the list. I did not find a way to do it from inside the email
3. Check your settings in advanced settings.
   1. Are you using a polling schedule or push? Mine is set for push
   2. Do you have Update Contact changes to Phone checked? Mine is unchecked
   3. Do you have include Phone Contacts in picklist checked? Mine is unchecked
4. I have not seen a problem with other apps being sluggish after installing Touchdown. You might want to check the advanced settings listed in item 3 above to see if one of those settings might help.

My installation of touchdown is configured through work with MobileIron. This is the only configuration allowed by my work. We are not allowed to use the Native Corporate email app, but I would rather use Touchdown instead.

We used to use Good for Enterprise which was an excellent app for corporate email. That worked well, but we switched to Touchdown since Good was not compatible with Exchange 2010 which we are transitioning too. I liked Good for Enterprise because they had decent widgets for Gingerbread. It also gave me the ability to turn on the Out of Office from my phone which Touchdown doesn't do (at least I have not found anything for that in the settings). Good was also configured by MobileIron too.

Hope this answers your questions. As for you don't have time to learn more about it, its like any other app on the phone, or program on your computer. The more time you can take to learn it, the more you can do with it

[f-s]

Under Google's settings, there is no option to select "email" as a Searchable Item.  The closest option is "apps" and that has already been selected.  Google search, on top of the homescreen, does not search any of my email accounts, so the "search" functionality needs to be provided within each email app.  Gmail and Yahoo provide the "search" functionality, but Touchdown and the native Android email app connected to my corporate account (Exchange) do not provide "search" functionality.

VERY surprising (and frustrating) as I understand Google, a search company, developed the entire native software on this device!

[f-s]

Thank you for your thorough reply.

Under Google's settings, there is no option to select "email" (or any of my email accounts) as a Searchable Item.  The closest option is "apps" and that has already been selected.  Google search, on top of the homescreen, does not search any of my email accounts, so the "search" functionality needs to be provided within each email app.

I uninstalled Touchdown due to continued sluggishness and various issues related to the "contacts" folder.  I then tried two other apps.  K-9 Email did not provide search functionality, as advertised.  Enhanced Email crashed as I lost connectivity to the Exchange server completely (both on Enahced Email and the native Android email app).

The lack of a search functionality on the native Android email app is puzzling.  Verizon's app simulator shows pictures that suggest the functionality exists, but the actual app on my phone does not match the pictures on Verizon's web site.  The service reps at Verizon, as well as the ones they connect me to at Samsung, both point to Google, which provides no live support.  Google is the developer of the native software on the device.  I wonder if the lack of search functionality on my corporate account is Google's attempt to force corporate users to use Gmail / IMAP as the main conduit for mobile email?

[curtterp]

It would be foolish for Google to 'cripple' the corporate email account in an attempt to force users to Gmail. Google wants to make inroads into the corporate world with Android, so to try something like that is very unlikely.

However, to put more resources into the Gmail functionality vs Corporate email is not surprising. Even Microsoft put more resources into Windows compatibility with Hotmail vs Yahoo mail etc. However, Microsoft shot themselves in the foot when Hotmail was first unleashed. I created a Hotmail account when it was first available, never published the email account anywhere, but yet had over 40 spam messages within 10 days, and over 100 in 30 days. Microsoft sold someone their new Hotmail listings and I never went back.

But Touchdown being sluggish on your phone surprised me. I wonder if the Contacts never fully synced and that was why you were getting a lot of Contact activity, and causing other things to be slower.

You might want to take a look at this website http://www.syncdroid.net/

It has an extensive table of programs that sync with Outlook and Exchange. You might find something that will work for you better than what you have experienced so far.

Good luck

[f-s]

Re: Touchdown's sluggishness, it seems to have been caused by the fact that I was running it in parallel with the stock Android email app.  I uninstalled my Exchange account on the stock email, and now Touchdown runs great.

Same issue with Enhanced Email - email runs well if the Exchange account is not running on the stock Android email app.  The developer is working out some kinks related to the Contacts and Calendar synch, but email works very well currently.