[gorillaunit]

I was told by a user that with BES you have the ability to backup phones remotely? Anyone know of this?

[nobody7290]

The backup runs invisible for the user, no user action required.

see here:
KB11202-How to enable and what databases are included in an Automatic Wireless Backup for a BlackBerry smartphone on a BlackBerry Enterprise Server

for a list of what is backuped

[gorillaunit]

so is there a point of me even backing up the phones manually? I cant find any documentation on how to restore that backed up data

We are moving from Lotus Notes to Exchange and needed to wipe the phones prior to activating them on the BES for Exchange.

[nobody7290]

I think it will be more work to backup the phones and later restore what maybe is lost then manually backup to somewhere else like paper.
Most things the users need will be there anyway.
Dont wipe the media cards, maybe, you want to keep the personal information stored there
Backup the messenger contact list to the SD card
If someone uses the password keeper application he looses all stored passwords, you should tell the users to write down the passwords before wiping the device
The Browsers bookmarks will be lost.

dont know more other important things.

[knottyrope]

in addition to above

you can turn off BES backup, do a desktop manager backup, wipe devices, activate on new BES and do a selective restore after.

[gorillaunit]

teaching users to install and back up using desktop manager would be alot more work. So im hoping to learn more about wireless backup. Is there a place I can see what's backed up? Or test it on a test user?

[freakinvibe]

Wireless backup will not work when you move from Notes to Exchange. It will only work when a user will be re-activated on the same mail platform.

So you will have to go the manual route for your migration.

[nobody7290]

Originally Posted by gorillaunit

teaching users to install and back up using desktop manager would be alot more work. So im hoping to learn more about wireless backup. Is there a place I can see what's backed up? Or test it on a test user?

In my first post, the link to the Blackberry kbase article tells all things which are backed up, but:

The Backup takes care of all important and even unimportant settings of the device.
It does not backup files which are stored on the SD card or on the internal memory, It also does not backup exchange/outlook data, because this will be delivered by exchange.
It does not backup 3rd party applications.
IT does not backup the email history.

In general, if you reactivate a new device, the user will get the emails from the point when the activation occurs. also, you loose all applications.
Everything else will be there again.

Not a bad idea to check this with a testuser, but i found the backup sufficent everytime I needed it.

If you want to migrate a working device to a new Handheld, you can use the migration assitant of the Desktop software. This will also take care of moving applications and email history.