Automatic Out of Office after 15:00 Mon-Fri?

[Elliot B.]

I have a work colleague that works 09:00 to 15:00 but standard business hours are until 17:00.

 

Is it possible for Out of Office to automatically switch on at 15:00 and turn off at 09:00 Mon-Fri in Microsoft Outlook 2013?

[Praetor]

Do you have an Exchange server? i presume yes because you said you are using OOO.

 

In Exchange 2013 / Exchange Online you can set this via PS:

Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration -Identity MAILBOX -AutoReplyState Enabled -InternalMessage "OOO Internal message." -ExternalMessage "OOO External Message."

So you can create a schedule task in the Exchange Server that runs once this PS for the target user mailbox (at the start time of the OOO) and one schedule task that also runs once that runs the same PS but with the Disabled parameter (at the end of time of the OOO). That way you can have a OOO that is recurring automatically for a single user; if more users want this feature be sure to see the performance impact of starting and ending this PS for a big quantity of users.

 

You can see more parameters for this PS command in here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638217.aspx

[xbamaris]

More info is needed... are you using some kind of PBX system? Or IP Phone? 

[sc302 Veteran]

If you have outlook 2010 and go to File, Info, Automatic Replies (Out of Office), you can set the time period for when the out of office will work for.  You will need to setup multiple rules for the different days, but it can be accomplished.

[Elliot B.]

More info is needed... are you using some kind of PBX system? Or IP Phone? 

Sorry, I had "Outlook 2013" in the topic's tags but I've added it to the message body.

 

If you have outlook 2010 and go to File, Info, Automatic Replies (Out of Office), you can set the time period for when the out of office will work for.  You will need to setup multiple rules for the different days, but it can be accomplished.

I'll take a look at Rules, many thanks (Y)

[Praetor]

So OP, this helped to solve your problem?

[Elliot B.]

So OP, this helped to solve your problem?

Sorry. To be honest, that's way too complicated for us, shame it's the only way to do it. But we appreciate your help!

[snuffy]

i don't think a scheduled powershell script is that complicated, its very simple to understand. try it? :)

[Elliot B.]

i don't think a scheduled powershell script is that complicated, its very simple to understand. try it? :)

We're just a small company with 8 computers and 1 server connected to a UPS. Non of us know what PowerShell is or how to use it and although I could figure it out, I don't want to mess.

[Intersect]

i don't think a scheduled powershell script is that complicated, its very simple to understand. try it? :)

While for some powershell scripts are not hard to understand The OP's colleague wanted to set the OOO reply his/her self so they might not be comfortable in setting a status via powershell or have the access to do so. Setting via a powershell script is more of a Admin task and i am sure if the admin of the exchange box wanted to do this they would have there own way of doing  it.

 

edit (sorry Elliot b) didnt see your reply until i posted mine.

[Elliot B.]

While for some powershell scripts are not hard to understand The OP's colleague wanted to set the OOO reply his/her self so they might not be comfortable in setting a status via powershell or have the access to do so. Setting via a powershell script is more of a Admin task and i am sure if the admin of the exchange box wanted to do this they would have there own way of doing  it.

 

edit (sorry Elliot b) didnt see your reply until i posted mine.

I have no issue if it was my server, I'd love to mess.

 

I was just hoping there was a UI option within Outlook that I was missing.

[Praetor]

Sorry. To be honest, that's way too complicated for us, shame it's the only way to do it. But we appreciate your help!

 

Do you have someone or a enterprise managing your email? If yes then ask them if they can implement that (server side) if it's an Exchange Server, because that will be automated and won't depend of the end user.

 

But in Outlook the only way to do this is by scripting: you can set a macro to start the OOO everytime the Outlook closes, so if your college closes the Outlook it will automatically start the OOO. This, of course, requires testing (tests to see if the OOO answers to internal and external mails).

 

You can create a macro like this:

Private Sub Application_Quit()
    OutOfOffice True
End Sub

Private Sub Application_Startup()
    'Remove this subroutine if you do not want to turn OOF off automatically.'
    OutOfOffice False
End Sub

Sub OutOfOffice(bolState As Boolean)
    Const PR_OOF_STATE = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x661D000B"
    Dim olkIS As Outlook.Store, olkPA As Outlook.PropertyAccessor
    For Each olkIS In Session.Stores
        If olkIS.ExchangeStoreType = olPrimaryExchangeMailbox Then
            Set olkPA = olkIS.PropertyAccessor
            olkPA.SetProperty PR_OOF_STATE, bolState
        End If
    Next
    Set olkIS = Nothing
    Set olkPA = Nothing
End Sub

and add it to your current Outlook session. So everytime your college starts Outlook, the OOO is disabled; everytime he closes it, it enables the OOO.

 

you can check here the full article for this solution: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Software/Office_Productivity/Groupware/Outlook/A_3487-Automating-Out-of-Office-in-Outlook.html

[Shiney]

Hi Elliot,

 

You can create a normal outlook rule that checks the header of a received email to see if it contains " 00:", " 01:", " 02:" (add one for each hour you want the out of office reply) and then have the server reply with your out of office message. The text to search for is a space, the hour, and a colon.

[Nick H. Supervisor]

It's been two years, I'm not sure that this is an issue for the OP now.

 

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