Whats the best way to tell if a user is using their BB's?

I have people asking on a daily basis if they can have a BlackBerry and at the moment the naser is no as we are skint :( . However I want to make sure all the people who have devices are using them, and have a few questions about what each of the fields mean in the BES Manager.

Pending Messages: I assume this is the number of messages that are waiting to be sent to the device? Does this include filtered messages? And is there a senario where a user would have a lot of messages pending but are still using the device?

Last Forward Time: Is this the last time a message was sent to the device or the last time the BES contacted the device?

I clear user stats every month to track "sent" messages. This at least tells me how many people are actually sending messages from their BB.

You pretty much have to assume that having a device means they use it. While 'sent' messages is a decent clue, it's still not foolproof. I don't send a lot from the BB, but I do get a lot of status messages from my servers, and the aility to read them from wherever is invaluable.

Yes, this is the number of messages waiting to be delivered to the device. This does not include filtered messages, there is a different column on the BES management console to view Filtered messages. I have users with high pending counts if they go out of coverage, or some actually turn their devices off when their on vacation (perish the thought!)

The Last Forward Time is the last time a message was delivered to the device. Last Sent Time is the last time the user sent a message from the device.

HTH

I agree with Canuck. We have a few users who have had no contact time in the last few months; fortunately, we have enough CALs to make room for them (although I will occasionally email to find out why they aren't using their company-expensed handhelds and service plans).

It's worth noting (imo), though, that the Last Contact Time, in conjunction with Pending Messages, will be the true factor on deciding if a handheld is being used or not. RIM's calculations for the LCT is based solely on the last time a message was forwarded to/received by the handheld, which has nothing to do with when a message was sent.

"We have a few users who have had no contact time in the last few months"

BES 4.0 HF-3 fixes a problem like that .. check the release notes

Also - if you want to get all those detail,I suggest using RIM BRK,its quite neat..

thanks for the suggestion, but i don't think a RIM HF will fix end-user stupidity...

Pending messages is probably the best way to see if the handheld is on or off, but not always if they are using it or not.

Pending messages includes email, pings, sync update, etc. It's basically anything sitting and waiting to go to the handheld.

Last Contact time will tell you when the last time one of these items were sent to the handheld.

Last Forward time will tell you when the last email was sent to the handheld.

It's actually hard to tell at a glance if someone is actually using the device. The easiest way I've found is to check their hip. If they have the BB strapped to them at all times, they definitely use it. If they never have it on their hip (doesn't always work for girls) then they may not be using it very often so ask them.

Zro