I have a problem I am not quite sure how to solve. I’ve tried a couple of things that didn’t really seem to work. Two months ago a started a new job. I use a company provided 2019 MacBook Pro. I was also given a company provided iPhone XR. I have Apple Watch Series 4 that is my personal watch along with a personal iPhone 8 Max. At my previous company, I had a similar setup, but used my personal iPhone and received a stipend, rather than being provided with a company phone. My challenge is this: Because my Apple watch is currently paired to my personal phone, I am missing out on all the benefits I had - namely seeing my work calendar stuff (Exchange account) on my Apple watch so I was up to date on appointments. I briefly tried using Fantastical hoping if I installed it on my MacBook and personal phone it would sync up on the watch, however, it required me to sign in the exchange account on my personal phone, which defeats the purpose.
Has anyone solved this before? What is my best option? Do I have to risk installing the exchange account on my personal phone which may give my work access to personal information? Or, is it best to unpair the Watch from my personal phone and have it on my work phone? Ideally, I’d like to have both on my watch, but I know I can’t pair it to multiple devices.
If you would like to see your work calendar on your own phone (and get appointment alerts on your watch) this might give you a partial solution. You could add the Exchange account onto your own phone but only switch on the calendar. I do this with my work calendar so that I can see all of my appointments on my phone and watch. Doing this means I do not get work emails on my own phone and watch at random times of the day and night.
Thanks for the reply. I considered that myself. Do you feel like work has any access to your personal information by doing that? I’m guessing work cannot install anything on your phone via adding the exchange account, but I think I saw something that said by adding the exchange account my phone would show up as an authorized device and worried they may be able to wipe my phone, or otherwise have access? Am I just wrong about that?
We use Office 365 for our work accounts but we did use Exchange in the past. I know at the moment (with Office 365) I am giving my phone’s calendar app access to read and write to my work calendar. I am not sure about having access to wipe the phone. I had to reset my iPad a few weeks ago and when I added my work account back the only information I remember seeing was about the access I was giving iOS to my calendar.
I also play and manage a brass band in my spare time. We use GSuite for our band email accounts and that does give limited access to the band account on the phones of others. From what I remember in the admin panel for GSuite I think I can wipe the band account (contacts, calendar, email, etc.) but only for the GSuite account that I manage. I don’t think it gives me access to wipe anything else on their phones.
It is probably best if you ask your work IT department what what permissions you will/will not be granting them if you add your Exchange account to your own phone. I cannot offer anymore advice I am afaid.
@TimM Yes most corporate email systems have the ability to remotely wipe a users phone. When triggered our non-Microsoft system would wipe all data from the phone. I believe O365 has the ability to wipe either mail or all data.
If this is a concern, you might want to check with your company before proceeding.
I have in the past put my Exchange account on personal phones and enabled the work calendar only, as above posters suggest, to get it to show up on my watch and it works a treat.
Re: remote Corporate wiping of private devices always seemed an ok trade off to me based on an understanding you can immediately reinstall personal stuff from iCloud backup- so it’s not as devastating as it sounds. Of course it would be a pain in the rear and you need to rely on daily iCloud backups being available- but for normal life that is pretty well sorted.
That was my old companies IT dept advice so I’d be interested to hear if that stands up as true?
Maybe, trying changing one of them to e-sim and just use one phone… I know you will not get the money when using the business stuff over your personal data but you will end with 2 numbers one phone.
@AJXN Thanks for the perspective RE: corporate swiping. I spoke to our IT manager. He basically said they rarely do it. He doesn’t mind if install it on phone or sync my watch to my work phone either way. Realizing that I back up to iCloud daily, I could probably just syncing the calendar to my personal phone. I’ll likely do just that and see how it goes.
@LuisMartinez He did ask what work phone they gave me and said if he had given me an 11 I could have two numbers, but didn’t think it was possible on the XR.