Office 365 to Go: The Android Experience

This next look at configuring Office 365 for businesses on mobile devices focuses on the most popular mobile platforms, Google Android. Unfortunately, getting Office 365 up and running via Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) on Android is a bit more complicated than with Windows devices.

The first step is to get your Office 365 account configured for email, contacts, and calendar. You do this through the Email app.

Note: Android configuration of Office 365 can vary depending on which version of Android you’re using. My Android handset is a Google Nexus 4 running Android 4.2.2. If you’re using a different configuration, you can find some painfully convoluted help on your Office 365 account’s Outlook Web App (OWA) web site.

In the Email app, you enter your Office 365 email address and password normally in Account Setup.

In the next screen, choose Exchange.

Then, in the most crucial phase of the process, you’re confronted with a fairly complex screen where more than a few things can go wrong.

Here’s what you need:

DomainUsername. In my version of Android, this needs to be set to a long string like [email protected].

Password. This is your password and should already be filled in. If you can’t get account configuration to work, however, it’s not a bad idea to retype it: You never know, you may have gotten it wrong the first time.

Server. Annoyingly, there’s no one answer to what should be used here. Office 365 help says you should open Outlook Web App and then navigate to Settings (gear), Options, Account and then click the link titled “Settings for POP or IMAP access...” This opens a dialog that will include a POP server name, which in my case is outlook.office365.com. This is the address you need to enter in the Server field. (Or, if the POP server name is in the form podxxxxx.outlook.com, you need to use m.outlook.com instead. Yes, it’s confusing.)

Use secure connection (SSL). Keep this option checked.

From here, tap Next. Email will check the server connections and then prompt you to accept some security settings.

Tap OK. Then, in the next screen, you can determine a number of settings related to this account.

Typically, you will want the Inbox checking frequency left on its default value of Automatic (Push), since that’s the point of EAS. But this screen also determines whether your Office 365 contacts and calendar are synced to the device as well.

After that, give the account a name (rather than the default, which is your full email address) and then you’ll be prompted to activate the device administrator features for security.

Finally, don’t forget to grab the few Office 365 mobile apps that are currently available for Android. These include OneNote Mobile* and Lync 2013 at the moment, but more are on the way.

*UPDATE: As noted in the comments, the Android version of OneNote Mobile currently only supports SkyDrive. Sorry about that --Paul