Managing Microsoft Exchange on Enterprise Devices: Challenges for IT Admins

In the modern enterprise setup, there has been a steady upsurge of mobile devices- both company-owned and employee-owned. As more and more employees use more than one device for work, it becomes imperative for the IT administrators to manage one key component that the employees access on all these devices- the work email. 

Employees want to have the flexibility to check their work emails on the go. The companies, on the other hand, want to leverage digital devices to get more things done. It’s a win-win situation for both. 

But as enterprises embrace this proliferation of digital devices powered with work emails, the IT teams have to consider quite a few elements that can cause a threat to the enterprise data that lies within the work emails. Microsoft Exchange is one of the most popular business email servers used for enterprise communication. When enterprises opt for Microsoft Exchange, the IT teams have to handle certain challenges that could otherwise hamper overall costs as well as data security.

Challenges of IT Admins Managing Microsoft Exchange

• Choosing the Right Licensing Model – When enterprises choose Microsoft Exchange, one of the most popular business mail servers, offering multi-device access is not the real challenge from the point of view of the exchange server. But what the IT teams have to consider is that they choose the right licensing model. If the enterprises encourage the use of multiple devices per user, per-user licensing makes for a more lucrative choice than a per-device one. 
  
  Moreover, the per-device licensing model doesn’t prove beneficial for enterprises enabling employees with mobile devices. The mobile devices are outdated in a short lifespan and the ones used in the enterprise environment are replaced or swapped every year. 
  
  The IT teams of enterprises choosing the per-device licensing model have to ensure that the old devices are dissociated in the server. 

• Keeping a Track of License Usage – Microsoft Exchange does not have automatic reporting for license usage. Hence, IT admins have to keep track of their end of the license usage, the number of licensed users or devices. Any violation in the same can result in severe financial penalties during the software audits that take place at a random time. 

• Handling Support Related to the Exchange Server – When more employees configure exchange on more than one device, there are varied synchronization patterns on different devices. One device may receive an email a few seconds earlier than the rest, smartphones might display the latest emails up to two weeks while a tablet might be configured only to display a week’s emails. Since the Exchange server is not individually configured on each device by the IT admins, such issues can arise leading to confusion within the employees. Further, if the employees seek IT support, it can further strain the IT team in handling only Exchange-related queries. 

Considering these challenges pertaining to managing Microsoft Exchange in device, it makes the most sense for the IT admins to opt for a device management solution. An MDM solution comes with capabilities to mitigate these challenges while ensuring the security of the Microsoft Exchange. 

Scalefusion MDM offers extensive features to help the IT admins to set up exchange email on Android, iOS, macOS and Windows 10 devices. 

Let Us Have a Quick Glance at How It Teams Can Manage Microsoft Exchange in Devices:

1. In the Scalefusion dashboard, navigate to the Email Utilities section and select the Exchange settings. This is where you can configure new settings of an exchange server.

2. To add a new server, click on the add new button and enter the account name, server details and the other basic details.

3. Further, the IT teams can also configure advanced settings such as sync frequency and email history to keep it consistent across all devices. 

4. Once the settings are saved, IT admins can push the settings on any device profile. All the devices configured to this device profile will reflect the Exchange settings.

Also, the Exchange settings can be pushed while creating a device profile.

For Android:

For iOS:

For Windows 10:

For macOS:

With Scalefusion, managing Microsoft Exchange Activesync for Android, iOS, macOS and Windows 10 devices is streamlined. The IT teams can exercise better control over the Exchange server on individual devices used in the enterprise environment.