Out of Office Auto Reply

[Jan Groshan]

My Outlook (I think it's Version 2000) is running on Exchange Server. I
have put in an auto reply in the out of office auto reply section, but I
don't think it's working. At least when I've sent myself an email from an
outside account, I don't get the auto reply. But I do get it if I'm within
the network .... which is useless because everyone in the office already
knows I'm not there. I need people outside the office to know.

 

[Vanguard]

My Outlook (I think it's Version 2000) is running on Exchange
Server. I have put in an auto reply in the out of office auto reply
section, but I don't think it's working. At least when I've sent
myself an email from an outside account, I don't get the auto reply.
But I do get it if I'm within the network .... which is useless
because everyone in the office already knows I'm not there. I need
people outside the office to know.

Talk to your Exchange admin.

The Exchange admin should have configured OoO to *not* respond to
external e-mails. That is, the OoO should only reply to other users
within the same Exchange organization, not to outsiders. The company
should not be divulging that they have provided no coverage for a
missing, vacationing, sick, or otherwise absent employee. To do so
presents a negative image of that company to a customer. A customer
doesn't give a gnat's fart that an employee went on vacation or got
pregnant. They want to contact the company through that employee but
their primary objective is to actually reach the company. Someone
should have been designated to handle e-mails through that absent
employee's account or have those e-mails automatically rerouted.

Even if your company misconfigured their Exchange server so external
e-mails would trigger the OoO auto-responder, spammers are not the
ones to which those auto-responses get sent. Spammers never use their
own e-mail address. Spammers use bogus e-mail addresses or those that
they have harvested. At best, the auto-response e-mail will be
undeliverable (invalid domain or undefined username). At worst, the
auto-response hits an innocent that had nothing to do with the spam
mail (and such misdirected bounces or backscatter are reportable to
DNS blacklists, like SpamCop). Only during the actual mail session
between the sending and receiving mail hosts can the sender be
accurately identified (if the e-mail is relayed then the relay host
gets the rejection whether it handles it or not). Sending bounces or
OoO auto-responses after the mail session cannot guarantee that it
gets received by the actual sender, especially for spam.


A company should not be sending OoO auto-responses outside the
company. They will not be received by spammer but they can afflict
innocents having nothing to do with the original e-mail. Such OoO
auto-responses sent outside the company also make it appear that
company hasn't a clue how to reassign their workforce to accomodate
employee absences (i.e., the company looks sloppy).


I believe Exchange 2007 can issue different OoO auto-responses to
internal and external senders. That way, they can try to cover up
their inability to reassign e-mail to someone else during an absence.
Since spam filtering at the Exchange server should be effectively
upstream of the auto-responder, the auto-responses will not get sent
to the obvious spam; however, there is no 100% detection of spam. The
number of innocents hit by the misdirected OoO auto-response would be
reduced, not eliminated. Legit senders will end up seeing the
alternate auto-response which is basically a push-off to a customer
which they consider rude, ignorant, and temporary blocks their ability
to communicate with the company (i.e., they'll have to go find some
other means to communicate to get past the sloppy management of
employee absences).

 

[Jan Groshan]

I can't say I totally agree with your analysis of why outsiders shouldn't
receive OoO auto responses. In my particular case, we shared an Exchange
email server with another company of which we were a tenant. We are now
moving our offices and our email address is changing. We want clients to be
told "This email address is no longer valid. Please redirect your email to
_____(new email address)_____." An OoO auto response seems the easiest way
to avoid a deluge of spam being forwarded. However, thanks for the
suggestion that an OoO responses coud be set to allow outsiders to receive.
I'll definitely check with the Exchange Administrator (if I can figure out
who that is!).

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

Use a rule and a template instead. The other item that Vanguard did not mention is the potential for a mail loop that will bring your exchange server to its knees. I have seen it happen and it is not pretty.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:

| I can't say I totally agree with your analysis of why outsiders
| shouldn't receive OoO auto responses. In my particular case, we
| shared an Exchange email server with another company of which we were
| a tenant. We are now moving our offices and our email address is
| changing. We want clients to be told "This email address is no longer
| valid. Please redirect your email to _____(new email address)_____."
| An OoO auto response seems the easiest way to avoid a deluge of spam
| being forwarded. However, thanks for the suggestion that an OoO
| responses coud be set to allow outsiders to receive. I'll definitely
| check with the Exchange Administrator (if I can figure out who that
| is!).
|
|
| || ||| My Outlook (I think it's Version 2000) is running on Exchange
||| Server. I have put in an auto reply in the out of office auto reply
||| section, but I don't think it's working. At least when I've sent
||| myself an email from an outside account, I don't get the auto
||| reply. But I do get it if I'm within the network .... which is
||| useless because everyone in the office already knows I'm not there.
||| I need people outside the office to know.
|||
||
||
|| Talk to your Exchange admin.
||
|| The Exchange admin should have configured OoO to *not* respond to
|| external e-mails. That is, the OoO should only reply to other users
|| within the same Exchange organization, not to outsiders. The company
|| should not be divulging that they have provided no coverage for a
|| missing, vacationing, sick, or otherwise absent employee. To do so
|| presents a negative image of that company to a customer. A customer
|| doesn't give a gnat's fart that an employee went on vacation or got
|| pregnant. They want to contact the company through that employee but
|| their primary objective is to actually reach the company. Someone
|| should have been designated to handle e-mails through that absent
|| employee's account or have those e-mails automatically rerouted.
||
|| Even if your company misconfigured their Exchange server so external
|| e-mails would trigger the OoO auto-responder, spammers are not the
|| ones to which those auto-responses get sent. Spammers never use
|| their own e-mail address. Spammers use bogus e-mail addresses or
|| those that they have harvested. At best, the auto-response e-mail
|| will be undeliverable (invalid domain or undefined username). At
|| worst, the auto-response hits an innocent that had nothing to do
|| with the spam mail (and such misdirected bounces or backscatter are
|| reportable to DNS blacklists, like SpamCop). Only during the actual
|| mail session between the sending and receiving mail hosts can the
|| sender be accurately identified (if the e-mail is relayed then the
|| relay host gets the rejection whether it handles it or not).
|| Sending bounces or OoO auto-responses after the mail session cannot
|| guarantee that it gets received by the actual sender, especially for
|| spam.
||
||
|| A company should not be sending OoO auto-responses outside the
|| company. They will not be received by spammer but they can afflict
|| innocents having nothing to do with the original e-mail. Such OoO
|| auto-responses sent outside the company also make it appear that
|| company hasn't a clue how to reassign their workforce to accomodate
|| employee absences (i.e., the company looks sloppy).
||
||
|| I believe Exchange 2007 can issue different OoO auto-responses to
|| internal and external senders. That way, they can try to cover up
|| their inability to reassign e-mail to someone else during an absence.
|| Since spam filtering at the Exchange server should be effectively
|| upstream of the auto-responder, the auto-responses will not get sent
|| to the obvious spam; however, there is no 100% detection of spam.
|| The number of innocents hit by the misdirected OoO auto-response
|| would be reduced, not eliminated. Legit senders will end up seeing
|| the alternate auto-response which is basically a push-off to a
|| customer which they consider rude, ignorant, and temporary blocks
|| their ability to communicate with the company (i.e., they'll have to
|| go find some other means to communicate to get past the sloppy
|| management of employee absences).

 

[Jan Groshan]

I can do that .... but how do I direct the rule to only be applied to
"legitimate" email ?


"Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
Use a rule and a template instead. The other item that Vanguard did not
mention is the potential for a mail loop that will bring your exchange
server to its knees. I have seen it happen and it is not pretty.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:

| I can't say I totally agree with your analysis of why outsiders
| shouldn't receive OoO auto responses. In my particular case, we
| shared an Exchange email server with another company of which we were
| a tenant. We are now moving our offices and our email address is
| changing. We want clients to be told "This email address is no longer
| valid. Please redirect your email to _____(new email address)_____."
| An OoO auto response seems the easiest way to avoid a deluge of spam
| being forwarded. However, thanks for the suggestion that an OoO
| responses coud be set to allow outsiders to receive. I'll definitely
| check with the Exchange Administrator (if I can figure out who that
| is!).
|
|
| || ||| My Outlook (I think it's Version 2000) is running on Exchange
||| Server. I have put in an auto reply in the out of office auto reply
||| section, but I don't think it's working. At least when I've sent
||| myself an email from an outside account, I don't get the auto
||| reply. But I do get it if I'm within the network .... which is
||| useless because everyone in the office already knows I'm not there.
||| I need people outside the office to know.
|||
||
||
|| Talk to your Exchange admin.
||
|| The Exchange admin should have configured OoO to *not* respond to
|| external e-mails. That is, the OoO should only reply to other users
|| within the same Exchange organization, not to outsiders. The company
|| should not be divulging that they have provided no coverage for a
|| missing, vacationing, sick, or otherwise absent employee. To do so
|| presents a negative image of that company to a customer. A customer
|| doesn't give a gnat's fart that an employee went on vacation or got
|| pregnant. They want to contact the company through that employee but
|| their primary objective is to actually reach the company. Someone
|| should have been designated to handle e-mails through that absent
|| employee's account or have those e-mails automatically rerouted.
||
|| Even if your company misconfigured their Exchange server so external
|| e-mails would trigger the OoO auto-responder, spammers are not the
|| ones to which those auto-responses get sent. Spammers never use
|| their own e-mail address. Spammers use bogus e-mail addresses or
|| those that they have harvested. At best, the auto-response e-mail
|| will be undeliverable (invalid domain or undefined username). At
|| worst, the auto-response hits an innocent that had nothing to do
|| with the spam mail (and such misdirected bounces or backscatter are
|| reportable to DNS blacklists, like SpamCop). Only during the actual
|| mail session between the sending and receiving mail hosts can the
|| sender be accurately identified (if the e-mail is relayed then the
|| relay host gets the rejection whether it handles it or not).
|| Sending bounces or OoO auto-responses after the mail session cannot
|| guarantee that it gets received by the actual sender, especially for
|| spam.
||
||
|| A company should not be sending OoO auto-responses outside the
|| company. They will not be received by spammer but they can afflict
|| innocents having nothing to do with the original e-mail. Such OoO
|| auto-responses sent outside the company also make it appear that
|| company hasn't a clue how to reassign their workforce to accomodate
|| employee absences (i.e., the company looks sloppy).
||
||
|| I believe Exchange 2007 can issue different OoO auto-responses to
|| internal and external senders. That way, they can try to cover up
|| their inability to reassign e-mail to someone else during an absence.
|| Since spam filtering at the Exchange server should be effectively
|| upstream of the auto-responder, the auto-responses will not get sent
|| to the obvious spam; however, there is no 100% detection of spam.
|| The number of innocents hit by the misdirected OoO auto-response
|| would be reduced, not eliminated. Legit senders will end up seeing
|| the alternate auto-response which is basically a push-off to a
|| customer which they consider rude, ignorant, and temporary blocks
|| their ability to communicate with the company (i.e., they'll have to
|| go find some other means to communicate to get past the sloppy
|| management of employee absences).

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

You will need exceptions - and hopefully your Exchange admin has put anti-spam filters in place at the gateway so you don't get spammed at work.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:

| I can do that .... but how do I direct the rule to only be applied to
| "legitimate" email ?
|
|
| "Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
| | Use a rule and a template instead. The other item that Vanguard did
| not mention is the potential for a mail loop that will bring your
| exchange server to its knees. I have seen it happen and it is not
| pretty.
|
| --
| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
|
| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
| reading.
|
| After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:
|
|| I can't say I totally agree with your analysis of why outsiders
|| shouldn't receive OoO auto responses. In my particular case, we
|| shared an Exchange email server with another company of which we were
|| a tenant. We are now moving our offices and our email address is
|| changing. We want clients to be told "This email address is no longer
|| valid. Please redirect your email to _____(new email address)_____."
|| An OoO auto response seems the easiest way to avoid a deluge of spam
|| being forwarded. However, thanks for the suggestion that an OoO
|| responses coud be set to allow outsiders to receive. I'll definitely
|| check with the Exchange Administrator (if I can figure out who that
|| is!).
||
||
|| ||| |||| My Outlook (I think it's Version 2000) is running on Exchange
|||| Server. I have put in an auto reply in the out of office auto reply
|||| section, but I don't think it's working. At least when I've sent
|||| myself an email from an outside account, I don't get the auto
|||| reply. But I do get it if I'm within the network .... which is
|||| useless because everyone in the office already knows I'm not there.
|||| I need people outside the office to know.
||||
|||
|||
||| Talk to your Exchange admin.
|||
||| The Exchange admin should have configured OoO to *not* respond to
||| external e-mails. That is, the OoO should only reply to other users
||| within the same Exchange organization, not to outsiders. The
||| company should not be divulging that they have provided no coverage
||| for a missing, vacationing, sick, or otherwise absent employee. To
||| do so presents a negative image of that company to a customer. A
||| customer doesn't give a gnat's fart that an employee went on
||| vacation or got pregnant. They want to contact the company through
||| that employee but their primary objective is to actually reach the
||| company. Someone should have been designated to handle e-mails
||| through that absent employee's account or have those e-mails
||| automatically rerouted.
|||
||| Even if your company misconfigured their Exchange server so external
||| e-mails would trigger the OoO auto-responder, spammers are not the
||| ones to which those auto-responses get sent. Spammers never use
||| their own e-mail address. Spammers use bogus e-mail addresses or
||| those that they have harvested. At best, the auto-response e-mail
||| will be undeliverable (invalid domain or undefined username). At
||| worst, the auto-response hits an innocent that had nothing to do
||| with the spam mail (and such misdirected bounces or backscatter are
||| reportable to DNS blacklists, like SpamCop). Only during the actual
||| mail session between the sending and receiving mail hosts can the
||| sender be accurately identified (if the e-mail is relayed then the
||| relay host gets the rejection whether it handles it or not).
||| Sending bounces or OoO auto-responses after the mail session cannot
||| guarantee that it gets received by the actual sender, especially for
||| spam.
|||
|||
||| A company should not be sending OoO auto-responses outside the
||| company. They will not be received by spammer but they can afflict
||| innocents having nothing to do with the original e-mail. Such OoO
||| auto-responses sent outside the company also make it appear that
||| company hasn't a clue how to reassign their workforce to accomodate
||| employee absences (i.e., the company looks sloppy).
|||
|||
||| I believe Exchange 2007 can issue different OoO auto-responses to
||| internal and external senders. That way, they can try to cover up
||| their inability to reassign e-mail to someone else during an
||| absence. Since spam filtering at the Exchange server should be
||| effectively upstream of the auto-responder, the auto-responses will
||| not get sent to the obvious spam; however, there is no 100%
||| detection of spam. The number of innocents hit by the misdirected
||| OoO auto-response would be reduced, not eliminated. Legit senders
||| will end up seeing the alternate auto-response which is basically a
||| push-off to a customer which they consider rude, ignorant, and
||| temporary blocks their ability to communicate with the company
||| (i.e., they'll have to go find some other means to communicate to
||| get past the sloppy management of employee absences).

 

[Jan Groshan]

By "exceptions", do you mean I'll have to list EVERY address I do or don't
want to receive email from? or is there a generl exception that would
prevent the majority of spam from getting through?



"Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
You will need exceptions - and hopefully your Exchange admin has put
anti-spam filters in place at the gateway so you don't get spammed at work.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:

| I can do that .... but how do I direct the rule to only be applied to
| "legitimate" email ?
|
|
| "Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
| | Use a rule and a template instead. The other item that Vanguard did
| not mention is the potential for a mail loop that will bring your
| exchange server to its knees. I have seen it happen and it is not
| pretty.
|
| --
| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
|
| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
| reading.
|
| After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:
|
|| I can't say I totally agree with your analysis of why outsiders
|| shouldn't receive OoO auto responses. In my particular case, we
|| shared an Exchange email server with another company of which we were
|| a tenant. We are now moving our offices and our email address is
|| changing. We want clients to be told "This email address is no longer
|| valid. Please redirect your email to _____(new email address)_____."
|| An OoO auto response seems the easiest way to avoid a deluge of spam
|| being forwarded. However, thanks for the suggestion that an OoO
|| responses coud be set to allow outsiders to receive. I'll definitely
|| check with the Exchange Administrator (if I can figure out who that
|| is!).
||
||
|| ||| |||| My Outlook (I think it's Version 2000) is running on Exchange
|||| Server. I have put in an auto reply in the out of office auto reply
|||| section, but I don't think it's working. At least when I've sent
|||| myself an email from an outside account, I don't get the auto
|||| reply. But I do get it if I'm within the network .... which is
|||| useless because everyone in the office already knows I'm not there.
|||| I need people outside the office to know.
||||
|||
|||
||| Talk to your Exchange admin.
|||
||| The Exchange admin should have configured OoO to *not* respond to
||| external e-mails. That is, the OoO should only reply to other users
||| within the same Exchange organization, not to outsiders. The
||| company should not be divulging that they have provided no coverage
||| for a missing, vacationing, sick, or otherwise absent employee. To
||| do so presents a negative image of that company to a customer. A
||| customer doesn't give a gnat's fart that an employee went on
||| vacation or got pregnant. They want to contact the company through
||| that employee but their primary objective is to actually reach the
||| company. Someone should have been designated to handle e-mails
||| through that absent employee's account or have those e-mails
||| automatically rerouted.
|||
||| Even if your company misconfigured their Exchange server so external
||| e-mails would trigger the OoO auto-responder, spammers are not the
||| ones to which those auto-responses get sent. Spammers never use
||| their own e-mail address. Spammers use bogus e-mail addresses or
||| those that they have harvested. At best, the auto-response e-mail
||| will be undeliverable (invalid domain or undefined username). At
||| worst, the auto-response hits an innocent that had nothing to do
||| with the spam mail (and such misdirected bounces or backscatter are
||| reportable to DNS blacklists, like SpamCop). Only during the actual
||| mail session between the sending and receiving mail hosts can the
||| sender be accurately identified (if the e-mail is relayed then the
||| relay host gets the rejection whether it handles it or not).
||| Sending bounces or OoO auto-responses after the mail session cannot
||| guarantee that it gets received by the actual sender, especially for
||| spam.
|||
|||
||| A company should not be sending OoO auto-responses outside the
||| company. They will not be received by spammer but they can afflict
||| innocents having nothing to do with the original e-mail. Such OoO
||| auto-responses sent outside the company also make it appear that
||| company hasn't a clue how to reassign their workforce to accomodate
||| employee absences (i.e., the company looks sloppy).
|||
|||
||| I believe Exchange 2007 can issue different OoO auto-responses to
||| internal and external senders. That way, they can try to cover up
||| their inability to reassign e-mail to someone else during an
||| absence. Since spam filtering at the Exchange server should be
||| effectively upstream of the auto-responder, the auto-responses will
||| not get sent to the obvious spam; however, there is no 100%
||| detection of spam. The number of innocents hit by the misdirected
||| OoO auto-response would be reduced, not eliminated. Legit senders
||| will end up seeing the alternate auto-response which is basically a
||| push-off to a customer which they consider rude, ignorant, and
||| temporary blocks their ability to communicate with the company
||| (i.e., they'll have to go find some other means to communicate to
||| get past the sloppy management of employee absences).

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

It all depends on your version of Outlook and if you have a Whitelist. I don't know about "all the types of spam" but you can experiment to see what works and what doesn't.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:

| By "exceptions", do you mean I'll have to list EVERY address I do or
| don't want to receive email from? or is there a generl exception that
| would prevent the majority of spam from getting through?
|
|
|
| "Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
| | You will need exceptions - and hopefully your Exchange admin has put
| anti-spam filters in place at the gateway so you don't get spammed at
| work.
|
| --
| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
|
| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
| reading.
|
| After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:
|
|| I can do that .... but how do I direct the rule to only be applied to
|| "legitimate" email ?
||
||
|| "Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
|| || Use a rule and a template instead. The other item that Vanguard did
|| not mention is the potential for a mail loop that will bring your
|| exchange server to its knees. I have seen it happen and it is not
|| pretty.
||
|| --
|| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
||
|| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
|| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
|| reading.
||
|| After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:
||
||| I can't say I totally agree with your analysis of why outsiders
||| shouldn't receive OoO auto responses. In my particular case, we
||| shared an Exchange email server with another company of which we
||| were a tenant. We are now moving our offices and our email address
||| is changing. We want clients to be told "This email address is no
||| longer valid. Please redirect your email to _____(new email
||| address)_____." An OoO auto response seems the easiest way to avoid
||| a deluge of spam being forwarded. However, thanks for the
||| suggestion that an OoO responses coud be set to allow outsiders to
||| receive. I'll definitely check with the Exchange Administrator (if
||| I can figure out who that is!).
|||
|||
||| |||| ||||| My Outlook (I think it's Version 2000) is running on Exchange
||||| Server. I have put in an auto reply in the out of office auto
||||| reply section, but I don't think it's working. At least when I've
||||| sent myself an email from an outside account, I don't get the auto
||||| reply. But I do get it if I'm within the network .... which is
||||| useless because everyone in the office already knows I'm not
||||| there. I need people outside the office to know.
|||||
||||
||||
|||| Talk to your Exchange admin.
||||
|||| The Exchange admin should have configured OoO to *not* respond to
|||| external e-mails. That is, the OoO should only reply to other
|||| users within the same Exchange organization, not to outsiders. The
|||| company should not be divulging that they have provided no coverage
|||| for a missing, vacationing, sick, or otherwise absent employee. To
|||| do so presents a negative image of that company to a customer. A
|||| customer doesn't give a gnat's fart that an employee went on
|||| vacation or got pregnant. They want to contact the company through
|||| that employee but their primary objective is to actually reach the
|||| company. Someone should have been designated to handle e-mails
|||| through that absent employee's account or have those e-mails
|||| automatically rerouted.
||||
|||| Even if your company misconfigured their Exchange server so
|||| external e-mails would trigger the OoO auto-responder, spammers
|||| are not the ones to which those auto-responses get sent. Spammers
|||| never use their own e-mail address. Spammers use bogus e-mail
|||| addresses or those that they have harvested. At best, the
|||| auto-response e-mail will be undeliverable (invalid domain or
|||| undefined username). At worst, the auto-response hits an innocent
|||| that had nothing to do with the spam mail (and such misdirected
|||| bounces or backscatter are reportable to DNS blacklists, like
|||| SpamCop). Only during the actual mail session between the sending
|||| and receiving mail hosts can the sender be accurately identified
|||| (if the e-mail is relayed then the relay host gets the rejection
|||| whether it handles it or not). Sending bounces or OoO
|||| auto-responses after the mail session cannot guarantee that it
|||| gets received by the actual sender, especially for spam.
||||
||||
|||| A company should not be sending OoO auto-responses outside the
|||| company. They will not be received by spammer but they can afflict
|||| innocents having nothing to do with the original e-mail. Such OoO
|||| auto-responses sent outside the company also make it appear that
|||| company hasn't a clue how to reassign their workforce to accomodate
|||| employee absences (i.e., the company looks sloppy).
||||
||||
|||| I believe Exchange 2007 can issue different OoO auto-responses to
|||| internal and external senders. That way, they can try to cover up
|||| their inability to reassign e-mail to someone else during an
|||| absence. Since spam filtering at the Exchange server should be
|||| effectively upstream of the auto-responder, the auto-responses will
|||| not get sent to the obvious spam; however, there is no 100%
|||| detection of spam. The number of innocents hit by the misdirected
|||| OoO auto-response would be reduced, not eliminated. Legit senders
|||| will end up seeing the alternate auto-response which is basically a
|||| push-off to a customer which they consider rude, ignorant, and
|||| temporary blocks their ability to communicate with the company
|||| (i.e., they'll have to go find some other means to communicate to
|||| get past the sloppy management of employee absences).

 

[Jan Groshan]

I think it's Outlook 2000. No, I don't have a whitelist. As for
experimenting .... I'll be working at a different location starting today so
access to the computer that I want the OoO message on won't be readily
accessible. I'm going to have someone check with the Exchange Administrator
to see what the settings are for Outlook on the Exchange Server. That might
just solve the whole problem. Since I'm not the only affected by the OoO
message not going to "outsiders", maybe they'll do something about it !



"Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
It all depends on your version of Outlook and if you have a Whitelist. I
don't know about "all the types of spam" but you can experiment to see what
works and what doesn't.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:

| By "exceptions", do you mean I'll have to list EVERY address I do or
| don't want to receive email from? or is there a generl exception that
| would prevent the majority of spam from getting through?
|
|
|
| "Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
| | You will need exceptions - and hopefully your Exchange admin has put
| anti-spam filters in place at the gateway so you don't get spammed at
| work.
|
| --
| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
|
| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
| reading.
|
| After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:
|
|| I can do that .... but how do I direct the rule to only be applied to
|| "legitimate" email ?
||
||
|| "Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
|| || Use a rule and a template instead. The other item that Vanguard did
|| not mention is the potential for a mail loop that will bring your
|| exchange server to its knees. I have seen it happen and it is not
|| pretty.
||
|| --
|| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
||
|| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
|| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
|| reading.
||
|| After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:
||
||| I can't say I totally agree with your analysis of why outsiders
||| shouldn't receive OoO auto responses. In my particular case, we
||| shared an Exchange email server with another company of which we
||| were a tenant. We are now moving our offices and our email address
||| is changing. We want clients to be told "This email address is no
||| longer valid. Please redirect your email to _____(new email
||| address)_____." An OoO auto response seems the easiest way to avoid
||| a deluge of spam being forwarded. However, thanks for the
||| suggestion that an OoO responses coud be set to allow outsiders to
||| receive. I'll definitely check with the Exchange Administrator (if
||| I can figure out who that is!).
|||
|||
||| |||| ||||| My Outlook (I think it's Version 2000) is running on Exchange
||||| Server. I have put in an auto reply in the out of office auto
||||| reply section, but I don't think it's working. At least when I've
||||| sent myself an email from an outside account, I don't get the auto
||||| reply. But I do get it if I'm within the network .... which is
||||| useless because everyone in the office already knows I'm not
||||| there. I need people outside the office to know.
|||||
||||
||||
|||| Talk to your Exchange admin.
||||
|||| The Exchange admin should have configured OoO to *not* respond to
|||| external e-mails. That is, the OoO should only reply to other
|||| users within the same Exchange organization, not to outsiders. The
|||| company should not be divulging that they have provided no coverage
|||| for a missing, vacationing, sick, or otherwise absent employee. To
|||| do so presents a negative image of that company to a customer. A
|||| customer doesn't give a gnat's fart that an employee went on
|||| vacation or got pregnant. They want to contact the company through
|||| that employee but their primary objective is to actually reach the
|||| company. Someone should have been designated to handle e-mails
|||| through that absent employee's account or have those e-mails
|||| automatically rerouted.
||||
|||| Even if your company misconfigured their Exchange server so
|||| external e-mails would trigger the OoO auto-responder, spammers
|||| are not the ones to which those auto-responses get sent. Spammers
|||| never use their own e-mail address. Spammers use bogus e-mail
|||| addresses or those that they have harvested. At best, the
|||| auto-response e-mail will be undeliverable (invalid domain or
|||| undefined username). At worst, the auto-response hits an innocent
|||| that had nothing to do with the spam mail (and such misdirected
|||| bounces or backscatter are reportable to DNS blacklists, like
|||| SpamCop). Only during the actual mail session between the sending
|||| and receiving mail hosts can the sender be accurately identified
|||| (if the e-mail is relayed then the relay host gets the rejection
|||| whether it handles it or not). Sending bounces or OoO
|||| auto-responses after the mail session cannot guarantee that it
|||| gets received by the actual sender, especially for spam.
||||
||||
|||| A company should not be sending OoO auto-responses outside the
|||| company. They will not be received by spammer but they can afflict
|||| innocents having nothing to do with the original e-mail. Such OoO
|||| auto-responses sent outside the company also make it appear that
|||| company hasn't a clue how to reassign their workforce to accomodate
|||| employee absences (i.e., the company looks sloppy).
||||
||||
|||| I believe Exchange 2007 can issue different OoO auto-responses to
|||| internal and external senders. That way, they can try to cover up
|||| their inability to reassign e-mail to someone else during an
|||| absence. Since spam filtering at the Exchange server should be
|||| effectively upstream of the auto-responder, the auto-responses will
|||| not get sent to the obvious spam; however, there is no 100%
|||| detection of spam. The number of innocents hit by the misdirected
|||| OoO auto-response would be reduced, not eliminated. Legit senders
|||| will end up seeing the alternate auto-response which is basically a
|||| push-off to a customer which they consider rude, ignorant, and
|||| temporary blocks their ability to communicate with the company
|||| (i.e., they'll have to go find some other means to communicate to
|||| get past the sloppy management of employee absences).

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

Outlook 2000 is woefully ill-equiped for the job. Urge your IT department to upgrade to at least Office 2003 or any supported platform to achieve the best results for your money. I officially withdraw every suggestion I made as OL 2000 will never be up to handling the job.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
reading.

After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:

| I think it's Outlook 2000. No, I don't have a whitelist. As for
| experimenting .... I'll be working at a different location starting
| today so access to the computer that I want the OoO message on won't
| be readily accessible. I'm going to have someone check with the
| Exchange Administrator to see what the settings are for Outlook on
| the Exchange Server. That might just solve the whole problem. Since
| I'm not the only affected by the OoO message not going to
| "outsiders", maybe they'll do something about it !
|
|
|
| "Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
| | It all depends on your version of Outlook and if you have a
| Whitelist. I don't know about "all the types of spam" but you can
| experiment to see what works and what doesn't.
|
| --
| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
|
| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
| reading.
|
| After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:
|
|| By "exceptions", do you mean I'll have to list EVERY address I do or
|| don't want to receive email from? or is there a generl exception that
|| would prevent the majority of spam from getting through?
||
||
||
|| "Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
|| || You will need exceptions - and hopefully your Exchange admin has put
|| anti-spam filters in place at the gateway so you don't get spammed at
|| work.
||
|| --
|| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
||
|| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
|| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
|| reading.
||
|| After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:
||
||| I can do that .... but how do I direct the rule to only be applied
||| to "legitimate" email ?
|||
|||
||| "Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]"
||| ||| Use a rule and a template instead. The other item that Vanguard did
||| not mention is the potential for a mail loop that will bring your
||| exchange server to its knees. I have seen it happen and it is not
||| pretty.
|||
||| --
||| Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]
|||
||| Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. All
||| unsolicited mail sent to my personal account will be deleted without
||| reading.
|||
||| After furious head scratching, Jan Groshan asked:
|||
|||| I can't say I totally agree with your analysis of why outsiders
|||| shouldn't receive OoO auto responses. In my particular case, we
|||| shared an Exchange email server with another company of which we
|||| were a tenant. We are now moving our offices and our email address
|||| is changing. We want clients to be told "This email address is no
|||| longer valid. Please redirect your email to _____(new email
|||| address)_____." An OoO auto response seems the easiest way to avoid
|||| a deluge of spam being forwarded. However, thanks for the
|||| suggestion that an OoO responses coud be set to allow outsiders to
|||| receive. I'll definitely check with the Exchange Administrator (if
|||| I can figure out who that is!).
||||
||||
|||| ||||| |||||| My Outlook (I think it's Version 2000) is running on Exchange
|||||| Server. I have put in an auto reply in the out of office auto
|||||| reply section, but I don't think it's working. At least when I've
|||||| sent myself an email from an outside account, I don't get the
|||||| auto reply. But I do get it if I'm within the network .... which
|||||| is useless because everyone in the office already knows I'm not
|||||| there. I need people outside the office to know.
||||||
|||||
|||||
||||| Talk to your Exchange admin.
|||||
||||| The Exchange admin should have configured OoO to *not* respond to
||||| external e-mails. That is, the OoO should only reply to other
||||| users within the same Exchange organization, not to outsiders.
||||| The company should not be divulging that they have provided no
||||| coverage for a missing, vacationing, sick, or otherwise absent
||||| employee. To do so presents a negative image of that company to
||||| a customer. A customer doesn't give a gnat's fart that an
||||| employee went on vacation or got pregnant. They want to contact
||||| the company through that employee but their primary objective is
||||| to actually reach the company. Someone should have been
||||| designated to handle e-mails through that absent employee's
||||| account or have those e-mails automatically rerouted.
|||||
||||| Even if your company misconfigured their Exchange server so
||||| external e-mails would trigger the OoO auto-responder, spammers
||||| are not the ones to which those auto-responses get sent. Spammers
||||| never use their own e-mail address. Spammers use bogus e-mail
||||| addresses or those that they have harvested. At best, the
||||| auto-response e-mail will be undeliverable (invalid domain or
||||| undefined username). At worst, the auto-response hits an innocent
||||| that had nothing to do with the spam mail (and such misdirected
||||| bounces or backscatter are reportable to DNS blacklists, like
||||| SpamCop). Only during the actual mail session between the sending
||||| and receiving mail hosts can the sender be accurately identified
||||| (if the e-mail is relayed then the relay host gets the rejection
||||| whether it handles it or not). Sending bounces or OoO
||||| auto-responses after the mail session cannot guarantee that it
||||| gets received by the actual sender, especially for spam.
|||||
|||||
||||| A company should not be sending OoO auto-responses outside the
||||| company. They will not be received by spammer but they can
||||| afflict innocents having nothing to do with the original e-mail.
||||| Such OoO auto-responses sent outside the company also make it
||||| appear that company hasn't a clue how to reassign their workforce
||||| to accomodate employee absences (i.e., the company looks sloppy).
|||||
|||||
||||| I believe Exchange 2007 can issue different OoO auto-responses to
||||| internal and external senders. That way, they can try to cover up
||||| their inability to reassign e-mail to someone else during an
||||| absence. Since spam filtering at the Exchange server should be
||||| effectively upstream of the auto-responder, the auto-responses
||||| will not get sent to the obvious spam; however, there is no 100%
||||| detection of spam. The number of innocents hit by the misdirected
||||| OoO auto-response would be reduced, not eliminated. Legit senders
||||| will end up seeing the alternate auto-response which is basically
||||| a push-off to a customer which they consider rude, ignorant, and
||||| temporary blocks their ability to communicate with the company
||||| (i.e., they'll have to go find some other means to communicate to
||||| get past the sloppy management of employee absences).

 

[Vanguard]

in message
Use a rule and a template instead. The other item that Vanguard did
not mention is the potential for a mail loop that will bring your
exchange server to its knees. I have seen it happen and it is not
pretty.


--- REPLY SEPARATOR ---
(required only because Milly used quoted-printable format)

I thought that was fixed by setting the value for the Return-Path
header to null. That way, when the receiving mail host got that
e-mail, it knows that it is not supposed to send back an NDR
(non-delivery report) or any other bounce-type e-mail. I thought that
was taken care of some 15, or more, years ago when auto-responders
were then continuously bouncing between each other, filling up
mailboxes with thousands of mails, and sucking up bandwidth on the
mail hosts.

 

[Vanguard]

I can't say I totally agree with your analysis of why outsiders
shouldn't receive OoO auto responses. In my particular case, we
shared an Exchange email server with another company of which we
were a tenant. We are now moving our offices and our email address
is changing. We want clients to be told "This email address is no
longer valid. Please redirect your email to _____(new email
address)_____." An OoO auto response seems the easiest way to avoid
a deluge of spam being forwarded. However, thanks for the suggestion
that an OoO responses coud be set to allow outsiders to receive.
I'll definitely check with the Exchange Administrator (if I can
figure out who that is!).

Why would you wait until a customer was trying to contact you for them
to then find out they had to use a new e-mail address? How are
customers to know of your move if they don't sent you e-mail during
your transition? Seems a better and proactive method is to tell them
that you are changing domains. If a customer was trying to get help
via e-mail, it's a nuisance to get back a bounce and then resend or
compose a new mail again. After awhile, the old Exchange server will
probably turn off the auto-responder for your domain, so customers
that didn't send you e-mail before that switch off won't know about
the change.

Can't you get your current Exchange org to forward e-mails to your
company's new mail host for awhile during which you could use your own
Exchange server to send back "update" auto-responses telling a sender
about your new domain? The auto-responder sends back only a single
response to each sender no matter how many times they send you e-mail.
That means there could be a disconnect between you and the sender if
the auto-response is missed, lost, deleted, filtered out, ignored,
etc. For example, maybe they have a rule to filter out "out of
office" replies (I find them worthless). An "out of office" bounce
should not be used as a "not here anymore" auto-responder. The sender
getting an "out of office" reply still expects that you or someone
else will still read their e-mail. They expect it got delivered
despite the auto-response. The "not here anymore" auto-responder
tells them that their e-mail went into a bit bucket instead of being
forwarded. If that is your intention for the Out of Office
auto-responder, you might as well just send out bulk mailings to your
customers telling them of the domain change and have the old Exchange
server simply reject delivery to your old usernames at at domain.

What are you going to do after the move when you can no longer
exercise any control over the old Exchange server anymore? Eventually
they will turn off the auto-responder for those old accounts, or they
will delete those old accounts, or they will discontinue forwarding
your e-mails to your new domain. Unless you start bulk mailing your
customers to let them know of your domain change, expect to lose
customers. Not all of them are going to be sending you e-mails during
the transition to then get the auto-response to tell them of the
change.

 

[Jan Groshan]

We are a small law firm. We were sharing office space with another firm and
using their Exchange Server. We have now gone to Go Daddy with a
personalized email address. The firm we were with has no problem keeping us
"alive" on their server. We don't need it "for ever", just a couple of
months should do it. All our clients, and opposing attorneys, have been
notified of the change of physical and email address. The OoO is more of a
"reminder" than "formal notice".