Automatically receiving mail messages and expiring them

[FJCarson]

Is there a way that if someone receives e-mail that it can be expired after
say...a week without any intervention?

A user is planning a newsletter and wants to send it out to a user that is
setup to automatically forward the mail to a group of users. This user wants
to have the e-mail automatically expire after one week. The user does not
want to have any manual intervention with outlook.

 

[Vince Averello [MVP - Outlook]]

Outlook messages can have an expiration date. Open the Options dialog while
composing a message (in OL2007: Options tab, click the little box next to
More Options) and set the expiration date. I think that will only work
between users using Outlook...

 

[FJCarson]

Thanks, I do understand how it works from user to user but I'm looking for an
automatic way of doing this without any intervention.

 

[VanguardLH]

Is there a way that if someone receives e-mail that it can be expired after
say...a week without any intervention?

A user is planning a newsletter and wants to send it out to a user that is
setup to automatically forward the mail to a group of users. This user wants
to have the e-mail automatically expire after one week. The user does not
want to have any manual intervention with outlook.

Thankfully the sender of an e-mail has no way to control the recipient's
property. Would you want someone to remotely control your host because
you read their e-mail? Those are called viruses!

Only unless BOTH the sender and recipient use Outlook 2003/2007, and
both use the same Exchange 2003/2007 as the mail server, and both are
logged under an domain regulated by Windows Server 2003, and both have a
Rights Management (RM) server running on their network to interface with
their Exchange mail server will the sender's RM options for an e-mail be
obeyed within the recipient's copy of Outlook 2003/2007. Considering
that you never even mentioned the use of Exchange as your mail server,
you probably don't have the environment in which to control what the
recipient can do with your e-mails. You said "user" as if you are some
admin of lots of users but you could just be a friend helping someone
else or just third-personing yourself. If you are a sysadmin of a
corporate network where the above mentioned requirements are met then
you'll have to figure out all the details of configuring the enforcement
of object rights, and I've never been there or even close to doing that
type of work.

If you are in a corporate environment using Exchange, then go read up on
Microsoft's Rights Management Server (RMS).

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/rightsmgmt/default.mspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_Management_Services
http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/Rights-Management-Service-Exchange-2003-Part1.html

An Exchange newsgroup is probably where you need to head to find out how
to incorporate an RM server in your corporate network.

 

[FJCarson]

We are using Exchange 2003 and I have heard of RMS and even used it for a
little bit.

The user that I mentioned is the one that will be creating the newsletter
and when done wants to "push" it to the outlook user that is setup with the
forwarding rule and have the newsletter available for a week.....and yes I am
an admin for a corporate network. I understand your concern about this
request. I would also...but no worries.

I will try to look at it from the RMS side. Thanks for some advice.

 

[Ben M. Schorr - MVP (OneNote)]

Umm...so how is it supposed to know to expire this message if the user
doesn't want to be bothered to set a simple expiry option?

Or does he just want ALL of his messages to expire in a week?

I assume he's willing to at least type the message and maybe address it?


--
-Ben-
Ben M. Schorr, MVP
Roland Schorr & Tower
http://www.rolandschorr.com
http://www.officeforlawyers.com
Author - The Lawyer's Guide to Microsoft Outlook 2007:
http://tinyurl.com/5m3f5q

 

[FJCarson]

Yes, when the person sends the e-mail to the user that forwards them to the
group, the e-mail should expire one week from the day it is sent to him.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Yes, when the person sends the e-mail to the user that forwards them
to the group, the e-mail should expire one week from the day it is
sent to him.

Why not use Autoarchive to simply delete all messages older than a week?

 

[FJCarson]

I don't care about autoarchiving them. I want the messages to expire after a
week

 

[Brian Tillman]

I don't care about autoarchiving them. I want the messages to expire
after a week

Notice that I said have autoarchive DELETE them, not archive them.

What do you intend to do with the expired messages? Expired messages hang
around just as long as any other messages. Outlook does nothing with them
except change their appearance in the view by displaying them with an
overstrike through their header line. Expired messages don't go away by
themselves.

 

[FJCarson]

In the e-mail there will be links to articles in the newsletter. After a
week we don't want them to be able to access them from the links in the
e-mail. Yes, I like the idea of them being autoarchived, it's just we don't
want them to be accessed from the links in the e-mail after a week.

If I'm not mistaken, will the strikethrough still allow them to access the
e-mail?

 

[Brian Tillman]

If I'm not mistaken, will the strikethrough still allow them to
access the e-mail?

Yes. When I tested expired messages, the only difference between them and
normal messages is that the InfoBar shows they're expired and they display
in the Inbox header list with a strike-through and a slightly lighter font.
In all other aspects thet are normal. I could respond to them, click links
in them and all the normal things you can do with a message. The expiration
date is just a message attribute no different that the creation date or
modification date for you to use as you see fit with whatever tools Outlook
supplies that recognize that date. The only tool in Outlook that actually
acts upon that date is autoarchive, which can be configured to delete
expired messages. Unless the recipient does that, though, the message will
be just a message with a slight change in presentation.