Out of Office Assistant question

[mcseguy9]

I have a user who is going on sabbatical and will be in another country for the first 6 months of 2007 . She wants to know if it's possible to have the out of office e-mail sent each time someone sends her an e-mail instead of the one time it sends it to each unique e-mail address that sends her a message. Does that make sense? I've never heard this request before so I thought I'd come here to see if you guys know if this is possible.

[Steve R Jones]

In theory, if the message she types up should say something like "I'LL be out of the office till JULY 2007."

In theory, most people reading that should know Not to email back till then..

A real ugly work around: Create a message rule on her pc instead of using the out of office assistant. Reboot her pc every morning or night.

[mcseguy9]

That's what I thought, and I agree about the spam situation. Let me ask a question about the rule. Won't her Outlook client need to be open on her PC (or a PC) in order for the rule to work? I've never setup a server side rule so maybe this would be the way to go?

[Steve R Jones]

Won't her Outlook client need to be open on her PC (or a PC) in order for the rule to work? -> Yes...Even message rules only work once per session. Thus the need to reboot her pc everyday and this is why it would be a real ugly work around...

[Steve R Jones]

Oh and ps...Out of Office Assistant is one of the reasons why office pc's get spammed...The reply goes back to them to validate that they have a good email address....