How to enable ‘out of office' functionality in a windows \ exchange 2000 domain?

[Quentin Hudson]

I want to enable the out of office functionality within our domain so
these messages can be received by email recipients external to my
organisation. It is turned off at the moment, because many people use
email distribution lists and excessive traffic generated by out of
office replies is something to be avoided. I have heard it may be
possible to have the out of office option enabled (for external
users), and avoid having the ‘ooo' message sent to distribution lists
through the use of rules on the Exchange server. Can this be done? If
so how can I create Exchange server rules to prevent automatically
generated server replies (i.e. out of office assistant) being sent to
distribution lists?

Any assistance and advice gratefully received.

 

[Mark Arnold [MVP]]

I want to enable the out of office functionality within our domain so
these messages can be received by email recipients external to my
organisation. It is turned off at the moment, because many people use
email distribution lists and excessive traffic generated by out of
office replies is something to be avoided. I have heard it may be
possible to have the out of office option enabled (for external
users), and avoid having the ‘ooo' message sent to distribution lists
through the use of rules on the Exchange server. Can this be done? If
so how can I create Exchange server rules to prevent automatically
generated server replies (i.e. out of office assistant) being sent to
distribution lists?

Any assistance and advice gratefully received.

The Exchange Advanced tab on the properties of a DG has a tickbox
"send out of office messages to originator". Clearly untick this.

I'd challenge what you say about OOF messages being anything like
excessive. They would be but a tiny fraction of the total.

Mark Arnold MCSA MCSE+M MVP,
FAQ: http://www.swinc.com/resource/exchange.htm
Blog: http://www.msexchange.me.uk

 

[Thor Kottelin]

I'd challenge what you say about OOF messages being anything like
excessive. They would be but a tiny fraction of the total.

- Delivery receipts, non-delivery notices, and vacation programs
are neither totally standardized nor totally reliable across the
range of systems connected to Internet mail. They are invasive
when sent to mailing lists, and some people consider delivery
receipts an invasion of privacy. In short, do not use them.

- RFC 1855

Recklessly crossposted; follow-ups set.

Thor

 

[Sam]

I'd challenge what you say about OOF messages being anything like
excessive. They would be but a tiny fraction of the total.

I'll be more than happy to forward to you all mail received by the admin
mailbox for mailing list than I run.

The next time some Outlook-using idiot tries to “recall a messageâ€, and
sends an undecipherable winmail.dat hairball to the mailing list, you'll
then get to deal with the mailbomb from all the other Outlook-running idiots
who are subscribed to the list, as their virus distribution software
(masquerading as an E-mail client) starts flinging more winmail.dat
hairballs at the list administrator's mailbox, without the knowledge or
consent of the clueless user.

Then we can review the issue of whether the robo-generated crap from Outlook
is “a tiny fraction†of something or other.


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[cybernaut]

Hi Quentin,

1. The mailing list problem:
Exchange keeps track to whom it did sent an OOO-Reply

 

[cybernaut]

Hi Quentin,

1. The mailing list problem:
Exchange keeps track to whom it did sent an OOO-Reply, it simply stores for
each reply the reply address once and will not use it again untill the
reply-list gets reseted. It gests reseted for each Exchange recipient
individually with seting the OOO off and back on again.

2. Replying to unknown sendes:
Problem is, that with sending your OOOR to the sender you will start
receiving more and more junk mail, because now the junk-sender know that
there is a valid recipient for this address and this encourages the junkers
to send your users more junk with various subjects.

3. The spies are everywehre:
Why should third party know about OOO ocurencies of your employees? This is
a big security issue. Since I do not live in the U.S. I can not tell you
about the legal impact of OOO-replies, but it is hardly to beleave that they
will have any impact on agreed business dead lines to third parties.

I hope I could give you some ideas, on solving your problem.

Cheers,
Imran