out of office query?

[jatkinson]

I have noticed that when I send an email to a colleague who has there out of office on I received the the out of office reply as expected.

However, if I send another message later I receive no out of office reply even though out of office is still on.

Is this by design or fault??

 

[brontosaurus]

design. It's one per customer. The assumption being that you've read the prior OOO response and know the user isn't there already...

 

[jatkinson]

Seems utterly pointless, what if I emailed the same person several days later and didn't get a out of office reply I'd assume they were in but they might not be!!!

If someone doesn't specify exactly when they are back on their message no-one would know.

Design fault.

 

[my55tec]

While we tell users not to do this, there is a way around this. When you setup the OOF Msg, you can also setup a Rule in the OOF Assistant which is a "reply". This "reply" could be identical to the regular OOF Msg and set to reply to all msgs (you will be warned when you choose ok).

Now, the OOF msg will be sent to every msg the user receives...the only issue with this is that on the "first" msg received from SenderA, he will receive 2 OOF msgs...1st is the real OOF, second is the OOF Rule Reply. All senders will receive both once...after that, only the OOF Rule Reply.

 

[jatkinson]

Thanks for the advice my55tec

It seems a valid workaround in absence of OOF doing any better.

Maybe it's just me but I think the design is just not practical.

 

[brontosaurus]

yeah, I tell folks not to do that as well, it's pretty annoying...
In response to your tirade jatkinson, I think the assumption that drove this decision was that users would be savvy enough to edit the out of office response with the precise dates that they would be unavailable. Thus, you would know if they'd be in "several days later". That's not to say that i don't agree with you...

 

[jatkinson]

I agree with you Brontosaurus but as we all know you can never rely purely on users (especially non IT inclined) ones to use simple common sense it also begs the question what happens if someone is off, for whatever reason, longer than anticipated?

Anyway enough of my ranting, no need to bore you guys with stuff you already know!

Thanks for the advice.

Cheers