Synopsis:
Outlook Exchange: Use Out of Office Assistant to create a vacation message; and how to apply rules.

Solution:
If you have an Exchange account you can use the Out of Office Assistant with Microsoft Outlook 2003/2002(XP) to send automatic replies to e-mail messages while you are on vacation or out of the office. Please note this information describes how to use the Out of Office Assistant in Outlook if you have Microsoft Exchange Server service in your profile (call the OIT Help Desk at 8-HELP to find out if you are Exchange enabled).

If you have already left your Office and the Outlook client is not available to you, you may set a simple vacation mesage using the Outlook Web Access (OWA) interface using Internet Explorer with any Internet connection. See Solution 9427 for instruction.

Follow the steps below to specify the text for automatic replies to e-mail messages when you're out of the office. Outlook will only reply once to any given sender for each period that the Out of Office Assistant is on, ie if the sender sends you another e-mail they will not get a reply.

1. Select the Exchange Server Inbox and choose Tools, Out Of Office Assistant.

2. In the Out Of Office Assistant dialogue box (see below), type the body of your automatic message reply in the AutoReply box. While the Out Of Office Assistant is active, the Exchange Server uses this message to reply to incoming e-mail.

3. Select I am currently Out of the Office and click OK

When you return to your office and login to Outlook, the following window will pop up. Click on Yes to turn off the Out of Office Assistant.

4. This is an optional step, but you may find it useful. You may also Add Rules to your Out of Office Message. By adding a Rule, you can select a different action to be taken dependent upon the sender of the e-mail message you receive. For example:

• You may select to have all messages received by your specific department to be sent to a particular folder.
• You may select to have a template (e-mail message) reply to the sender.
• You can send a specific message to a specific sender

For more information on the Out of Office Assistant, please see the Microsoft Knowledge Base article 290846 which contains detailed instructions on:

• How to turn on the Out of Office Assistant
• How to create a rule
• How to delete a rule
• How to edit a rule
• How to change the order in which rules are applied
• How to turn a rule on or off
• How rules are applied

If you want Outlook to send a vacation message to every single message received, every single time, use the instruction below. This is not necessarily recommended as people who send you multiple pieces of mail daily might not appreciate the number of times they are notified you are vacation!

The following are instructions to have an Out of Office message sent from a template every time a message comes in:

• Open your Outlook application
• From the Tools pulldown menu, select Out of Office Assistant
• Add Rule
• Check Reply with Template
• Create template (subject & body of message)
• When finished, from the File pulldown menu, select Save and Close
• Click OK on the Edit Rule screen
• You will receive a message asking if you want the rule to apply for all messages, click Yes
• Set status to Currently Out of Office
• Click OK
• Exit the Outlook program