Out of Office/Auto Replies

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Hello,
I'm using Outlook '03 with Exchange. I'm trying to get the Out of Office
Auto Reply to reply more than one time to each sender telling them I am out
of the office. However, Outlook will only send one Out of Office reply to
each sender. Thinking this was a feature (problem) with Out of Office Auto
Reply, I tried creating a rule to do basically the same thing. Again, the
auto-reply text is only sent once to each unique email address. Is this
common with Outlook or a problem with my Outlook and/or Exchange Server?
Any thoughts on how to get multiple auto-replies sent to the same sender?
Our faculty need to be reminded many times that we are away... Thanks a
bunch for the help!
 
This is indeed a (security) feature of the Out of Office Assistent to
prevent endless mailloops

A serverbased auto-reply based on rules should work though so make sure you
don't get endless mailloops on your server.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-What do the Outlook Icons Mean?
-Create an Office 2003 CD slipstreamed with Service Pack 1
 
dougr said:
Hello,
I'm using Outlook '03 with Exchange. I'm trying to get the Out of
Office
Auto Reply to reply more than one time to each sender telling them I
am out
of the office. However, Outlook will only send one Out of Office
reply to
each sender. Thinking this was a feature (problem) with Out of Office
Auto
Reply, I tried creating a rule to do basically the same thing. Again,
the
auto-reply text is only sent once to each unique email address. Is
this
common with Outlook or a problem with my Outlook and/or Exchange
Server?
Any thoughts on how to get multiple auto-replies sent to the same
sender?
Our faculty need to be reminded many times that we are away... Thanks
a
bunch for the help!
Click to expand...


Yep, just once, that's all you get. Why do you need to hammer the same
sender with your same out-of-office message?

Think about it: Why is there a limit of just responding once using
out-of-office? Well, say you subscribed to a newsletter. It send you
this month's message. You bounce back your out-of-office reply. The
bulk server doesn't give a crap about you not being around and it
doesn't accept e-mails or commands within e-mail (and if it did accept
command, like unsubscribing, then your reply won't be in the correct
syntax, anyway). The bulk server that sent the newsletter sends a reply
back to you saying it doesn't understand the command(s) you were
supposed to put in your reply. You send back another stupid reply. The
bulk server sees it as a completely new message from someone else and
sends back the same stupid reply. Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, ad
nauseum until your mailbox quota gets consumed and your mail admin
bitches at you for all the crap you bounced back and forth while
consuming valuable bandwidth.

The Exchange server is most likely configured to NOT send out-of-office
replies to *outside* senders (because the company doesn't want to be
responding to bulk e-mails, like newsletters, spam, hackers, and so
forth). They also do not want to announce to their customers that the
company is incapable of covering the responsibilities or duties of one
of its employees who happened to take a vacation. If you were a
customer of IBM or Intel, would you give a gnat's fart about whether or
not Joe Shmuck was at work and would have to wait for his return, or do
you want to get your problem taken care of now? This was exactly the
fiasco that occurred when Out of Office (i.e., auto-responders) were put
under control of users who don't think the process through (and also
aren't stuck managing the mess that results).

XCON: How to Enable Out-of-Office Replies to the Internet
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=262352
How to Enable Out-of-Office Reply Messages to the Internet
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=821899

How to emulate the Out of Office Assistant in Microsoft Outlook
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=311107

How to Use the Out of Office Assistant
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=290846
 
Thank you for your help!
doug

Roady said:
This is indeed a (security) feature of the Out of Office Assistent to
prevent endless mailloops

A serverbased auto-reply based on rules should work though so make sure you
don't get endless mailloops on your server.

--
Robert Sparnaaij [MVP-Outlook]
www.howto-outlook.com

Tips of the month:
-What do the Outlook Icons Mean?
-Create an Office 2003 CD slipstreamed with Service Pack 1

-----
dougr said:
Hello,
I'm using Outlook '03 with Exchange. I'm trying to get the Out of Office
Auto Reply to reply more than one time to each sender telling them I am
out
of the office. However, Outlook will only send one Out of Office reply to
each sender. Thinking this was a feature (problem) with Out of Office
Auto
Reply, I tried creating a rule to do basically the same thing. Again, the
auto-reply text is only sent once to each unique email address. Is this
common with Outlook or a problem with my Outlook and/or Exchange Server?
Any thoughts on how to get multiple auto-replies sent to the same sender?
Our faculty need to be reminded many times that we are away... Thanks a
bunch for the help!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks... Your reply made much sense!
Doug

Vanguard said:
Yep, just once, that's all you get. Why do you need to hammer the same
sender with your same out-of-office message?

Think about it: Why is there a limit of just responding once using
out-of-office? Well, say you subscribed to a newsletter. It send you
this month's message. You bounce back your out-of-office reply. The
bulk server doesn't give a crap about you not being around and it
doesn't accept e-mails or commands within e-mail (and if it did accept
command, like unsubscribing, then your reply won't be in the correct
syntax, anyway). The bulk server that sent the newsletter sends a reply
back to you saying it doesn't understand the command(s) you were
supposed to put in your reply. You send back another stupid reply. The
bulk server sees it as a completely new message from someone else and
sends back the same stupid reply. Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, ad
nauseum until your mailbox quota gets consumed and your mail admin
bitches at you for all the crap you bounced back and forth while
consuming valuable bandwidth.

The Exchange server is most likely configured to NOT send out-of-office
replies to *outside* senders (because the company doesn't want to be
responding to bulk e-mails, like newsletters, spam, hackers, and so
forth). They also do not want to announce to their customers that the
company is incapable of covering the responsibilities or duties of one
of its employees who happened to take a vacation. If you were a
customer of IBM or Intel, would you give a gnat's fart about whether or
not Joe Shmuck was at work and would have to wait for his return, or do
you want to get your problem taken care of now? This was exactly the
fiasco that occurred when Out of Office (i.e., auto-responders) were put
under control of users who don't think the process through (and also
aren't stuck managing the mess that results).

XCON: How to Enable Out-of-Office Replies to the Internet
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=262352
How to Enable Out-of-Office Reply Messages to the Internet
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=821899

How to emulate the Out of Office Assistant in Microsoft Outlook
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=311107

How to Use the Out of Office Assistant
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=290846

--
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