MS Out of Office - morons

[dynamo123]

Thank you for the earlier help I received to my earlier inquiry especially from Scott.

Here's my latest, frustrating issue (as usual like most things when things get updated, it gets worse and worse not better)-

I am trying to set up an out of office auto reply on Outlook but on this new Outlook there's no "Automatic Replies" response but rather an option to create a new rule/alert. Now I've done this but as you know this response only gets sent when you log into Outlook. What on earth is the point of that!? What's the point of sending an automatic response when you're already on your computer and logged into Outlook!? You'll just respond then. The whole point of an out of office auto response is that it gets sent to anyone and everyone sending you an email when you're away and not on your computer!

Which moron came up with this idea? And how can I get around this? What do I need to do to get the old Outlook option of selecting the Automatic Replies option. You just wrote an out of office message, clicked that and done, just like that, it was so simple. Is it because I do not have Exchange server integrated into my Outlook?

 

[strollin]

Which version of Outlook are you using? I have Office 2016 on my work computer and it supports Automatic Replies.

 

[PP Mguire]

I'm going to guess 365, and I do believe a signed off reply requires an Exchange server. Our environment is way different though so I could be wrong.

 

[strollin]

That makes sense, I don't use Outlook on my personal computer, only my work computer, so the requirement for an Exchange Server is probably the difference.

 

[PP Mguire]

Yea because if your machine is off it obviously can't send a reply, hence Exchange server. In enterprise and I believe 365 in general the Exchange server handles the auto replies while your machine is off. All email goes through it, if you're offline it holds your email until you come in (this is why most companies have an inbox limit) and if said auto reply is set the server can respond accordingly. Another option is to leave your machine on (if this is at work it shouldn't be an issue) and then set your away so it'll respond while you're gone.