After September 11, 2001, many organizations began updating their emergency and Continuity of Operations (COOP) plans. One component of those plans addresses how emergency response teams, management, and other crucial staff communicate. Many organizations have chosen to use Research In Motion's (RIM's) BlackBerry handheld devices for such communications because they provide multiple pathways for messages to move between handheld devices. The sidebar "BlackBerry Messaging Options" details these pathways. The advantage of having multiple message delivery paths is that they provide users with a measure of communications fault tolerance.
One pathway uses PINs to send messages. I created a script called BPS.vbs (which is short for BlackBerry Pin Synchronization) to keep BlackBerry PIN information up-to-date on handheld devices. With this script, you can effectively use PIN-based communications as part of an emergency or COOP plan.
Can I Get Your Number?
RIM assigns each BlackBerry handheld device a unique PIN, which you can use to associate the handheld device with an Exchange server mailbox. When you provision the handheld device on RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Server, BES uploads the PIN and stores it with other configuration information. Unfortunately, BES doesn't incorporate the PIN in the associated mailbox's directory entry, which means that you can't find someone's PIN by looking in Active Directory (AD) or in the Exchange Server directory, depending on your Exchange deployment. If you want to know a user's PIN, you need to contact that person directly or use BES administration tools to look up the PIN. . . .
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