Out of office reply

M

Mickey Stevens

If you're using an Exchange Server, you need to set up the Out of Office
reply using Outlook or Outlook Web Access.

Otherwise, see this FAQ article:
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/rules/example/rule003.html>

Make sure that you read the note at the bottom. If you don't want to or
cannot keep your computer on and internet connection active while you're
away, you should investigate to see if there is a server-level auto reply
function that you can use.
 
B

BB

A big disadvantage with server side out of office rules, is that SPAM mail
will be affected too.

What happens is this:

You receive a SPAM mail with a faked sender address
The out of office reply is sent to the faked and often non-existing address
The server receiving your out of office reply responds that the address does
not exist.
Your server sends another out of office reply to that server

The effect is that for almost every spam you will also get a "Message could
not be delivered mail" in your mailbox when you get back from you holiday.

If you follow the recommendation in the article below and use your client
instead you could set up the out of office rule to ignore any junk
classified mail, or even just handling mails from certain domains, or only
senders in a certain categories (business for instance).

Another great disadvantage with sending out of office replies to spammers is
that you confirm the validity of your e-mail address (in the case the reply
address in the spam mail is valid of course), which eventually will lead to
your getting even more spam than before.

-Bo
 
B

BB

Thanks Paul.

Another point is a slight modification to the rule outlined in
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/rules/example/rule003.html.

My scenario looks like this:

I want to send out of office replies to people I know, i.e they are in my
address book, and to people from "friendly domains"
([email protected])

Also I only want to send one out of office reply to each sender. (In case
one person sends me several mails during my absence).

I have created a special group in my address book called "out of office"
where I've put all addresses in my address book.

The basic rule resembles the one described in
http://www.entourage.mvps.org/rules/example/rule003.html. Instead of testing
for the sender being in my address book I test for the sender belonging to
the "out of office group". To this rule I have two actions. One is sending
the reply like outlined in the article, and the second is to remove the
sender from the "out of office" group. This takes care of people just
getting one out of office reply. Of course I have to set up the group again
next time I will be absent.

To take care of users from friendly domains but not in my address book I set
up a rule that tests for the sender containing the domain name in question.
The action is to add the sender to the group "out of office". Also I have
unchecked the "Do not apply other rules..." option. By putting the rule in
front of the basic rule described above I will first add the user to the
"out of office" group, and then the basic rule will send the reply and
remove the sender from the group again.

There are of course may ways to accomplish this, but this works for me. I
hope :)

-Bo
 
B

BB

A little clarification: The friendly users rule must test for for the sender
being from a friendly domain AND not being in my address book already.

-Bo
 
Top