Troubleshooting when using Exchange

Due to the limitations of the “Exchange” protocol*, you cannot store MailShot-created contacts in an address book that synchronises using it, as Exchange strips out all contacts but the first in any MailShot contact it touches.

If you are currently only using Exchange for your contacts you have a number of options available, described below.

* If you are unsure whether you synchronise your contacts using the Exchange protocol, go to the Mail, Contacts and Calendars section of the Settings app on your device, select your “Exchange” account if on iPhone and iPod touch (or your Exchange username if on iPad), and verify the position of the “Contacts”slider.

If there is no Exchange account listed, or the “Contacts” slider is set to “Off”, then you are not using Exchange to synchronise your contacts.

If you are using iOS4 or iOS5 you can use any of these solutions alongside Exchange. But if you are still on iOS3* for some reason, you must use these solutions INSTEAD of Exchange.

* If you are unsure which iOS version you are using, go to your Settings application, tap “General”, and tap “About”. The iOS version number appears on the line which starts “Version”.

These are the suggested solutions, followed by instructions for each.

1. Set up iCloud contact sync on your device (iOS5 only)
2. Synchronize contacts via iTunes. You can sync your contacts with Google, Yahoo, or Windows/Mac address books using this method, and still continue to synchronize your email wirelessly using Exchange.
3. (iOS4 and above only) create a local address book for your MailShot contacts and continue to use Exchange for everything else.

1. Enable iCloud contact sync.

If you have upgraded to iOS5, you can enable iCloud contact sync on your device. This will normally create a local address book that MailShot can use, and will also share MailShot groups you create between your iOS devices, if you have more than one.

To enable this go to the Settings app, then select iCloud. Enter your details to set up iCloud if necessary. Set the slider for “contacts” to ON.

Now retry creating your group with MailShot.

P.S. If you want to migrate all your Google contacts to iCloud, see this page for instructions.

2: Using iTunes to synchronize your contacts.

You can use iTunes to synchronize your contacts each time you connect to your PC or Mac. This method can be used to sync your contacts with Google, Yahoo or your Windows  or Mac contacts.

1. Goto the Mail, Contacts and Calendars section of the Settings app, select your “Exchange” account, and move the slider for contact synchronization to the “Off” position.
2. Connect your device to your PC or Mac, and fire up iTunes.
3. In iTunes, select your device name in the Devices list on the left column of the screen.
4. Select “Info” from the row near the top of the device window, and select which service you would like to use for your contacts (Mac OS X Address Book, Yahoo! Address Book, and Google Contacts on a Mac, or with Yahoo! Address Book, Google Contacts, Windows Address Book (Outlook Express), Windows Contacts (Vista and Windows 7), or Microsoft Outlook 2003, 2007, or 2010 on a PC). On a Mac, you can sync contacts with multiple applications. On a PC, you can sync contacts with one application at a time.
5. Tick the box marked “Sync Contacts With” on the info pane.
6. Click Apply in the lower-right corner of the screen.
7. (iOS4 only) If you wish to re-enable Exchange: Goto to the Settings app and re-enable contact synchronization for your Exchange account. If asked if you want to keep the contacts on your phone, say “yes”. Delete any MailShot groups you created previously in your Exchange contacts.
8. You should now be able to create MailShot groups.

3: Creating a local address book.

This solution is not suitable for iOS3. On iOS 4 and above, MailShot can use a “local” address book for  contacts to avoid synchronization issues with Exchange.

If present, a local address book is shown on the Group page of your Contacts app, named as “All on my iPhone” (or whichever device you are using.)

If you don’t have a local address book, don’t worry! – its easy to add this to your device.

1. Goto the Settings app, and select “Mail, Contacts, Calendars.”
2. Select the account with the heading “Exchange”, then switch off the contacts sync for this account. It will pop up a warning that it’s about to delete contacts from the iPhone, but we will be restoring them in a few moments.
3. Go to your Contacts app and create a dummy contact entry (which you will delete later). This should create the “All on my iPhone” group in Contacts.
4. Goto to the Settings app and re-enable contact synchronization for your Exchange account, this restores all the contacts to your iPhone. If asked if you want to keep the contacts on your phone, say “yes” (If it doesn’t ask you this question, then you probably didn’t successfully create a new entry in stage 3.)
5. Delete any MailShot groups you may have created previously.
6. You should now be able to create MailShot groups in the local address book. When you have created one successfully, you can delete the dummy entry you added in stage 3.

NOTE: For those with multiple iDevices.

If any of the mobile iOS (iPhone, iPod touch or iPad) devices you synchronise to are still using Exchange to synchronise contacts wirelessly, then the problem may still occur. You may need to disable Exchange sync on ALL your devices to avoid the problem.