Need Help with Out of Office Assistant

[Cyndy Sheehan]

We would like to be able to set up Out of Office Assistant to allow internet
replies, but we would rather not send replies to the spam email. I have
been researching this topic and found where others have asked, but not
gotten an answer or told to turn off the internet replies ability.
Unfortunately, our customers are not on our network and reach our email
through the internet. We don't allow replies to got out over the internet
at this point in time due to the amount of junk email that comes along with
the business email - so our customers are not notified when a person is out
of the office unexpectedly. We do not have a spam filter in place to weed
out the junk mail at the server level at this time so each outlook uses the
filters to send those type of emails to the deleted folder. I have found
where you can use the stop processing all other rules within the junk
senders and adult senders filter rules, which stops the Out of Office Reply
from going out, but the filters do not catch a large amount of the junk
these days. Any suggestions would be great!!! I am stumped on this one.

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

We would like to be able to set up Out of Office Assistant to allow
internet replies, but we would rather not send replies to the spam
email. I have been researching this topic and found where others
have asked, but not gotten an answer or told to turn off the internet
replies ability.

Out of Office to the Internet is either enabled or disabled - it will reply
to all senders once.

Unfortunately, our customers are not on our network
and reach our email through the internet.

How are they connecting to their mailboxes - if I understand your setup
correctly?

We don't allow replies to
got out over the internet at this point in time due to the amount of
junk email that comes along with the business email - so our
customers are not notified when a person is out of the office
unexpectedly. We do not have a spam filter in place to weed out the
junk mail at the server level at this time so each outlook uses the
filters to send those type of emails to the deleted folder. I have
found where you can use the stop processing all other rules within
the junk senders and adult senders filter rules, which stops the Out
of Office Reply from going out, but the filters do not catch a large
amount of the junk these days. Any suggestions would be great!!! I
am stumped on this one.

Get a good antispam product like MailEssentials (www.gfi.com) or a third
party service like www.postini.com to stop the spam (or much of it) coming
in to your server in the first place. Playing around with rules is a PITA
for stuff like this.

 

[Cyndy Sheehan]

Thanks for the reply. In answer to your questions:

How are they connecting to their mailboxes - if I understand your setup
correctly?

I meant that the email our customers send come through the internet and not
that they connect to our email directly. Sorry I worded that wrong.

Get a good antispam product like MailEssentials (www.gfi.com) or a third
party service like www.postini.com to stop the spam (or much of it) coming
in to your server in the first place. Playing around with rules is a PITA
for stuff like this.

Agreed - that would solve the problem for us or atleast the bulk of the
problem, but that is not an option that will be completed soon, so I need to
get around it until it is finally implemented on the main server. Hence the
reason for my search and questions.

Thanks

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

Thanks for the reply. In answer to your questions:
I meant that the email our customers send come through the internet
and not that they connect to our email directly. Sorry I worded that
wrong.

No prob - I re-read and get it.

Agreed - that would solve the problem for us or atleast the bulk of
the problem, but that is not an option that will be completed soon,
so I need to get around it until it is finally implemented on the
main server. Hence the reason for my search and questions.

You'll have to play with the rules for each mailbox's out-of-office
replies - and this is a pain and may not do exactly what you want. For spam,
if you go with something like postini, you don't have to manage anything
yourself in-house, remember - I think it's worth the money for small offices
who don't have dedicated IT staff.

Thanks

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

Out of Office to the Internet is either enabled or disabled - it
will reply to all senders once.


How are they connecting to their mailboxes - if I understand your
setup correctly?


Get a good antispam product like MailEssentials (www.gfi.com) or a
third party service like www.postini.com to stop the spam (or much
of it) coming in to your server in the first place. Playing around
with rules is a PITA for stuff like this.