Since I got my Palm Pre about a month ago, I've been (impatiently) waiting for 8.5.1 to be released so I could try out Traveler and activesync. I knew the Pre wasn't a supported device, but as we all know, "unsupported" absolutely does NOT mean "impossible."

Craig Wiseman was kind enough to let me try it on his beta 8.5.1 server awhile back, and we had been going back and forth trying this and that to no avail. Finally we collectively realized the url was wrong once we scrutinized Domlog - the Palm Pre is looking for http://mailserver/Microsoft-Server-Activesync, whereas Domino runs it on http://mailserver/servlet/traveler/Microsoft-Server-Activesync.

Once Domino 8.5.1 was released to the wild, it took me no time to download it and upgrade my Domino server. From there, I shut down Domino, downloaded Traveler 8.5.1 and ran the install. It was a 128M file that took about 5 whole minutes to install. I started Domino back up.

Finally, I creatred a simple redirect website rule, which seemed to do the trick for me on my home server:



From there, it's as easy as one, two, three to set up on the Pre!

Go into your email, and go to Email-->Preferences and Accounts.

Click Add an account.

It will prompt you for your email address, but go to Email-->Manual Setup.

Choose Exchange (EAS) as the mail type, and put in your mail server. Leave the domain field blank. Put in your Notes Internet name and password. In my case, I blanked it out as I'm on a home server and it's just an IP address (redirected through port 8081 as home servers block port 80. Something about them not wanting you to run a web server, cough cough.)

Click Sign in.



That's really it, folks! It took about five minutes to completely sync everything. I was pleasantly surprised to find out it also was syncing my contacts and calendar. I thought I'd have to repeat this process for each item. No task sync on the Pre - it doesn't even let you add any service, so this would seem like a Pre issue, not Traveler.

I did go back and set my EAS account as the default. Now it looks like this:



That was really it. The entire process took no time (upgrading Domino, installing Traveler, and connecting on the Pre). The only caveat seems that I cannot disable the 4-digit pin I have to enter every single time I use my phone.

Thank you Lotus. For the first time, I finally have true push email/calendar/contacts, something this working mobile mom absolutely CANNOT live without in her career!



Technorati: Lotus Traveler

1. Gregg Ginsberg02/01/2010 02:11:47 PM
Homepage: http://www.boxtone.com

Sorry it took so long to answer but I've been working w/ Palm and they have an update to the mail client which should ship as part of WebOS 1.4 this month.

However, do not upgrade Traveler to 8.5.1.1 (the version released during Lotusphere) as IBM seriously borked up some stuff that Palm is currently working with them to correct. The 1.4 mail client will still show a blank message body if you upgrade Traveler to 8.5.1.1 (it's OK to install FP1 for Domino).

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2. Jim Steiker01/12/2010 03:35:00 PM
Homepage: http://www.sesadvisors.com

Followed this path and everything worked great until Palm update 1.3.5. Now I can't see the body of emails received on the device. Palm support was useless. Any thoughts??

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3. Gregg Ginsberg10/16/2009 10:10:39 AM
Homepage: http://www.boxtone.com

Will do, Jess.

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4. Jess Stratton10/15/2009 11:53:19 AM

Gregg, feel free to send me an email to jstratton@solacelearning.com so I can have it - if I find workarounds for any of this stuff I can let you know too. I've just seen the blank email address bit. However, it still beats IMAP - no calendar except for Google Calendar desktop sync hacks, and IMAP on my Pre didn't send deletions back to the mail file.

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5. Gregg Ginsberg10/14/2009 04:31:03 PM
Homepage: http://www.boxtone.com

And that's what I get for skimming / not reading to the end (re: the PIN). I think we're pretty much stuck. I've played w/ enabling /disabling and there's no change. Definitely a pain...at least w/ a BlackBerry you can set a delay before you get prompted for a password. The Pre's keylock (and hence, the PIN requirement) kicks in just seconds after the screen goes dark.

The other thing you will probably run into is that on any message where the sender's address does not include a phrase (ie. Gregg Ginsberg <gregg@domain.com> vs. just gregg@domain.com), the sender info will be blank on the Pre and you will not be able to reply to the message from the device.

Other than that, I've been pretty happy and prefer this method to using IMAP/SMTP and relying on CompanionSync to my PIM stuff to Google for me.

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6. Jess Stratton10/14/2009 04:23:20 PM

I definitely want to podcast about it, Ray. I know I was the biggest WinMo fangirl, but the Pre is just FUN and that's what I love about it.

Gregg, I actually had just recently found your comments on vowe.net while I was searching Google for a way to disable the 4-digit pin! I wrote in the blog that's the only caveat I can find. I don't have that option set. The only thing left to try is to SET it in the Traveler configuration database, and then disable the setting. Hopefully that would make it go away.

Awesome about not needing the URL redirection - I had not even thought about using the 'servlet/traveler' directly in the incoming server field. Duh! Thank you! (I only needed the port redirection because I'm on a home server.)

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7. Gregg Ginsberg10/14/2009 04:10:20 PM
Homepage: http://www.boxtone.com

One other thing....you can get around the need for the http redirection document if you simply use

https://hostname.domain.com/servlet/traveler (or just http w/ or w/out the modified port as Jess has used)

in the "incoming mail server" field.

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8. Gregg Ginsberg10/14/2009 04:07:06 PM
Homepage: http://www.boxtone.com

Jess-I've been playing around w/ the Pre/Traveler 8.5.1 solution on the Greenhouse for a while and just deployed it on Monday night on my own setup. I was wondering if you have encountered the Pre forcing you to use a 4-digit PIN even if you have no password security set in Travler.

Also, 8.5.1 does not support Tasks sync over Activesync (not implemented because the iPhone is incapable of doing it).

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9. Ray J Bilyk10/14/2009 03:32:04 PM
Homepage: http://www.thepridelands.com

I know that this has been 'an opportunity' for you from listening to the 1352 Report podcast. I can't wait for the next podcast to hear more about your experiences with it since your setup...

Cheers!

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