Modifica

Condividi tramite

Emulate the Out of Office Assistant in Outlook

  • Si applica a: Outlook for Microsoft 365, Outlook 2021, Outlook 2019, Outlook 2016

Original KB number:   311107

The Out of Office Assistant feature in Microsoft Outlook is a Microsoft Exchange Server service. It is available only when the Exchange Server transport service is included in an Outlook user's profile. You can emulate this feature by creating an e-mail template and defining a rule in the Rules Wizard to automatically reply with the template.

Define an automatic reply template

Use the following steps:

  1. Select New E-Mail on the Ribbon.
  2. On the Format Text tab, select Plain Text.
  3. Type the information that you want to have in your reply message.
  4. Select File on the Ribbon, and then select Save As.
  5. In the Save As dialog box, select Outlook Template in the Save as type list.
  6. Type a name for your reply template in the File name box, and then select Save.

Define a rule to send an automatic reply

Use the following steps:

  1. Select the File tab in the Ribbon, and then select the Info tab on the menu.
  2. Select Manage Rules & Alerts, and then select the New Rule button on the E-mail Rules tab.
  3. In the Rules Wizard under Start from a blank rule, select Apply rule on messages I receive, and then select Next.
  4. Under Which condition(s) do you want to check, select the sent only to me check box or any other check box that you want, and then select Next.
  5. Under What do you want to do with the message, select the reply using a specific template check box.
  6. Under Step 2: Edit the Rule Description, select the underlined phrase a specific template.
  7. In the Select A Reply Template dialog box, select the reply template that you saved in step 6 of Define an automatic reply template section, and then select Open.
  8. Complete the Rules Wizard instructions, select Finish, and then select OK.

The reply using a specific template rule in the Rules Wizard is designed to send the reply only one time to each sender during a session. This prevents Outlook from sending repetitive replies to a sender from whom you receive multiple messages.

Outlook must be running for the Rules Wizard to send a reply automatically. During a session, Outlook remembers the list of users to whom it has responded. When you restart Outlook, this list is deleted and the rule is reset to start again for each sender.