My company is getting ready to rollout 1600 Blackberry devices to our users. Is there a way to set an activation password for multiple users instead of having to go into each BES account to set it? We are using a standard password for the activations and typing it 1600 times scares me. Unfortunatly, we are activating them before we deploy to the user so emailing the password isn't an option. Thanks for any advice.

BTW - Bes 4.1 sp2 with Domino 7.

Assuming it's the same as Exchange BES, open BlackBerry Manager, bring up your user list, highlight everyone in the list (SHFT+END), expand Service Access, click on Set Activation Password. I'd recommend making the time frame a bit more than the standard 48 hours (however long you think it'll take you to activate all 1600 devices). Once you set the password, it'll pop up a notification dialog that states it set it for all of the users.

...might want to do this in groups of 100, or so. I would imagine that this could put some strain on the server if processed all at once.

Setting activation passwords for 1600 users at one go is one thing... I imagine simultaneous wireless activations for ALL 1600 users on a same day... that will kill your BES by putting the messaging agent, sync and policy services to their limit. I would suggestion rolling out by groups of users rather all of them at the same time. Just my 2 cents worth...

Thanks for all of the feedback. We are going to add and deploy them in groups of about 40 per day for the next few months, so the load on the servers(we have 6 BES) shouldn't be too bad.

Any other good tips for a rollout of this magnitude?

Yeah, make sure your BES has plenty of RAM and backup that SQL database!!!!

Well, i've tried to do 20 per day ... activating maximum 3 simultaneously.
Otherwise it took ages, even when on DL580.

Edited: Oh, you mentioned 6 BES ... then it will be ok i think