Time based rules?

[eyoungren]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
Processor: Power PC
Email Client: Exchange

I'm wondering if there is any way to create a rule in Entourage 2004 that will only execute between certain hours.

My work email often gets messages after hours that are addressed to me. Rather than waiting until 8am the next morning to answer these messages is there any way I can have them automatically forward to my home email between 5pm and 8am?

I can't see anyway to do this with the default rules. I'm willing to do this via applescript if that's the only way, but I have only an intermediate understanding of AS.

Is this possible at all?

 

[Adam Bailey]

My work email often gets messages after hours that are addressed to me.
Rather than waiting until 8am the next morning to answer these messages is
there any way I can have them automatically forward to my home email between
5pm and 8am?

Are you able to just set up your work email at home?

 

[Michel Bintener]

In addition to Adam's suggestion (which would simplify things enormously):

there is no way to create time-based rules in Entourage. You can create a
rule to forward messages sent to one account to another one, but that option
is not time-aware, i.e. it is either active or inactive. In other words, you
would have to activate the rule when you leave the office and de-activate it
when you get back to work.

 

[eyoungren]

My work email often gets messages after hours that are addressed to me.
Rather than waiting until 8am the next morning to answer these messages is
there any way I can have them automatically forward to my home email between
5pm and 8am?

Are you able to just set up your work email at home?
[/QUOTE]
That would be the best option, but I have two problems.

1. I'm the Graphic Designer for my company (which is a small business) so the IT work falls to me. I don't know enough about Exchange to get this working for me at home. I'd just use remote email access if I knew how to make that work based on our set up which is problem number 2.

2. Our setup is a local domain. Pueblo.local to be exact. We have a POP server which Exchange downloads from every 15 mins. So, email goes to the star-times.com which gets routed to our ISP POP servers and then it gets picked up by Exchange and delivered internally.
So... the nut I've never had time to crack was how to get remote email working on a local domain. I can barely figure out ISA 2004, let alone how our server relays through 2 NIC cards.

Of course it'd all be easier if we had an actual public domain, but I wasn't here 10 years ago when the company bought the .coms and the websites as a package (they didn't have a server then either).

So, short answer...No, I can't. Love too, but even when I had the time I didn't have the time required to learn and figure this out.

 

[eyoungren]

In addition to Adam's suggestion (which would simplify things enormously):

there is no way to create time-based rules in Entourage. You can create a
rule to forward messages sent to one account to another one, but that option
is not time-aware, i.e. it is either active or inactive. In other words, you
would have to activate the rule when you leave the office and de-activate it
when you get back to work.




--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP - Macintosh

*** Please always reply to the newsgroup. ***

This probably sounds like the best option. The hardest part being to remember to activate/deactivate it.

Thanks guys. If you have any other suggestions or help, please share.

 

[Michel Bintener]

If you work regular hours, you can simply set a reminder to run when you
leave/get back to your office. I'm not sure if rules are accessible via
AppleScript; if they are, you can set up a schedule to enable/disable the
rule automatically. You'll have to wait for one of the resident AppleScript
experts to get an authoritative answer.