[onCloud] Out of Office Assistant

Out of Office Assistant

Out of Office Assistant for Outlook 2010

Hosted Exchange Email provides you with the ability to create Out of Office replies. The Out of Office Assistant generates automatic replies to e-mail messages that you receive while you're away. Each time you activate the assistant, Outlook Web Access sends an automatic reply to someone the first time he or she sends you a message. To create an Out of Office reply, please follow the instructions provided below:

1. Click the File tab, and then click the Info tab in the menu.
2. Click Automatic Replies (out of office).
3. In the Out of Office Assistant dialog box, select the Send Automatic Replies check box.
4. If you want to specify a set time and date range, select the Only send during this time range check box, set the Start time, and then set the End time.
5. In the Inside my organization tab, type the message that you want to send within your organization, and in the Outside my organization tab, type the message that you want to send outside your organization.
6. Click Apply.

Out of Office Assistant for Outlook 2007

Hosted Exchange Email provides you with the ability to create Out of Office replies. The Out of Office Assistant generates automatic replies to e-mail messages that you receive while you're away. Each time you activate the assistant, Outlook Web Access sends an automatic reply to someone the first time he or she sends you a message. To create an Out of Office reply, please follow the instructions provided below:

1. In the Navigation Pane , click Options.
2. To enable the Out of Office Assistant, under Out of Office Assistant, click I'm currently out of the office.
3. In the text box, type the message you want people to receive when they send you e-mail messages while you're away.
4. To disable the Out of Office Assistant, click I'm currently in the office.

Out of Office Assistant error (Needed if From Address has been Changed)

Outlook 2007 uses the Autodiscover.exchangeDomain.tld A record in the client DNS records to connect to some exchange features including the Out of Office message feature. If you change your Primary From Address, then Outlook looks for autodiscover.yourFromAddressDomain.com instead of the actual exchange domain.

So technically, if you set your from address to username@hotmail.com, Outlook would be trying to use autodiscover.hotmail.com to connect to those exchange features. In most cases clients are using custom domains or simply using subdomains as a way to bypass moving all of their email around. For those clients you can simply add autodiscover.PrimaryFromAddressDomain.com as an A record and resolve this issue.

In the case that you have changed your From Address to include a domain name that you can not control, such as hotmail.com, you will need to use the OWA to edit your Out of Office of Assistant.