I never bother my IT guy with Activations. Activation can take place automatically if DM has an online connection with the mail server. DM has to be installed for BES support. Then it should ask for your email profile. I usually vpn in and then I get an online connection. After the upgrade I leave it plugged in for a few more minutes and EA starts automatically.

What I usually do is setup DM to prompt me for the email profile. Then, I can hit "cancel" and it will treat it like a BIS upgrade with no connection to the server. I do my upgrade. Then when I'm done restoring and making sure the OS seems stable, I plug it back in, open DM and choose my email profile. Let it sit for a few minutes and EA will start on it's own.