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10 Minute Guide to Microsoft Exchange 5.0
- Lesson 23 -
Using the Out of Office Assistant
In this lesson, you learn how to use the Out of Office Assistant to manage
your incoming mail automatically when you're not in your office.
If you're going to be out of your office, you can use the Out of Office Assistant
to deal with incoming mail. For example, you could automatically send a note to each
person who sends you mail, saying you're away and giving instructions on who to direct
questions to (such as "contact Bob in my absence"). Or, you could forward
a copy of all (or certain) messages to a coworker.
As with the Inbox Assistant (which you learned about in Lesson 22), you have to
create rules for the Out of Office Assistant to follow.
Sending Out of Office Notes
The most common function of the Out of Office Assistant is to send a note back
to every person who sends you e-mail. The note, which you compose, can inform the
sender of your absence, ask the sender to contact someone else, or say whatever else
you might want to say. The Out of Office Assistant keeps track of the names of people
who send you mail, and it sends only one note to each person.
To have the Out of Office Assistant send a note to everyone who sends you e-mail
during your absence, follow these steps:
- 1. Choose Tools, Out of Office Assistant to bring up the Out of Office
Assistant dialog box.
2. Click in the AutoReplyÉ text box and enter the message you want to send
to people who send you mail in your absence (see Figure 23.1).

Figure 23.1 Enter a message for the Out of Office Assistant to send
while you're away from your office.
Creating Automatic Rules
You also can create a set of rules for automatic handling of your incoming mail
while you're away from your office. The rules can be applied in addition to the AutoReply
feature.
Forwarding Mail
One common practice that makes use of this feature is to make sure that messages
marked high priority are forwarded to another user for instant action. To establish
this rule, follow these steps:
- 1. Choose Tools, Out of Office Assistant to open the Out of Office Assistant
dialog box.
2. In the Out of Office Assistant dialog box, click the Add Rule button.
3. When the Edit Rule dialog box appears, choose Advanced.
4. From the Advanced dialog box (see Figure 23.2), select Importance, choose
High from the list box of priority choices, and click OK.
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Figure 23.2 You can set specifications for the kind of messages you
want handled automatically while you're away.
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- 5. From the Perform These Actions section of the Edit Rule dialog box,
choose an action. In this case, choose Forward, click the To button, and select (double-click)
the user who will receive this message. Then choose OK. The rule appears in the Out
of Office Assistant dialog box (see Figure 23.3).
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Figure 23.3 The AutoReply features and the rules you've set take effect
only when you're out of the office.
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- 6. Click OK to close the Out of Office Assistant dialog box. Neither the
rule nor the AutoReply feature will be implemented until you select the I Am Currently
Out of the Office option button.
Creating Other Rules
As you saw in the previous exercise, arranging for high-priority messages to be
forwarded is a simple process. While you were creating this rule, you may have noticed
the other possibilities for creating rules. You can create rules based on certain
conditions, such as who sent the message, whom the message was sent to, and whether
it contains a certain word. In addition, you can have the message moved, copied,
forwarded, deleted, or replied to. With this large range of conditions and actions,
rules and the actions they perform can range from a very simple rule that has one
condition and performs a single reaction to a rule that has many conditions and performs
several reactions.
Returning to Work
After you return to your office, when you launch your Microsoft Exchange Client
software, you'll be reminded that the Out of Office Assistant is enabled (the I Am
currently Out of the Office button is selected). Open the Out of Office Assistant
(choose Tools, Out of Office Assistant) and select the I Am Currently in the Office
option button.
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Conflicting Rules If you've enabled the Inbox Assistant, it's always in effect.
If any of the rules you establish in the Out of Office Assistant conflict with the
rules in the Inbox Assistant, during the time you are out of the office, the Out
of Office Assistant's rules will take precedence.
In this lesson, you learned how to use the Out of Office Assistant to handle incoming
mail when you are not in your office. In the next lesson, you'll learn how to access
information from a Microsoft Exchange Server using a Web browser.
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