Ideas for Managing iOS Mail Settings

[joelande]

We are starting our first 1:1 iPad Initiative.

I'd like to make it as easy as possible for 3rd graders (etc) to use the iOS mail app.

I know there is a mail payload available for profiles.

But I am wondering about the practicality of how this is implemented.

Do people just pre populate the server fields in the profile and then ask the end users to enter their name, email address, and credentials?

Or is there a way to automate it through LDAP?

We currently are assigning each device in the JSS to our LDAP, so theoretically(?) the profile could supply that information, but I am not sure that is even possible.

What are others doing?

[calum_carey]

yep and then create a config profile that sets up mail. Once deployed users simply need to enter their password. the rest of the account is setup

[joelande]

But is the email address and username automatically populated via Casper?
I just leave those fields empty in the mail payload and Casper automagically inserts LDAP info?

[calum_carey]

use the variables $USERNAME and $EMAIL

[blackholemac]

calum_carey is right on...I am presuming you use MS Exchange, but could well be wrong. We use Exchange here for our mail server and I got the joy of getting iPads out to admins for teacher evals. Basically to keep from having to hand setup Exchange, I used Casper, assigned the user to the iPad inventory record using LDAP lookup. In the Exchange profile, you use the variables calum_carey is referring to. The only thing the admins had to do was install the profile through Self-Service (you might end up pushing it out, but I used Self-Service. You then open Mail. It asked ONLY for the Exchange password and Mail started flowing in. I DID send out some documentation to our users that they might want to turn Organize by Thread off under their Mail, Calendars and Contacts settings on the local iPad, but that is an optional thing...our users tend to be annoyed by that function.

Hope this helps,
blackholemac

[Nick_Gooch]

We don't have our users email address entered into LDAP but their user name from LDAP is the same as their email. So in the email address field of the profile I used $USERNAME@email.com The user just has to enter their password once the profile is installed.

[charliwest]

Sorry to drag this up again from an old discussion but when I do this the profile actually has $USERNAME as the username.... any ideas why this might be the case here and not for others?

[Kevin]

You would get $USERNAME returned if the value in the username field in the JSS is not populated.

[charliwest]

I did have that, not sure what changed, but it seems to be working now :)

[mmurray]

$USERNAME and $EMAIL worked like a charm for us using LDAP/eDirectory.

Mark