The Entourage User's WebLog

We've probably all received them. You send an email to someone and get a little message back that says "Bill is out of the office until the end of the week, if you message was urgent please contact Betty on 1234-56789". Ever wished to set one up? It's pretty easy really.

There's two basic methods: Server-Side and Client-Side. Server-Side rules have the advantage that they continue to work and respond to incoming mail even if your own computer is not switched on. But they have to be provided by your mail server and aren't available to everyone. If you are using Entourage to connect to an Exchange Server, you can set up Server Side Rules (including OoF† rules) on the server, but you can't do this from Entourage, you need to connect to the server through a web browser using Outlook Web Access to configure it. If Entourage 2004 is working with Exchange, then the server has OWA turned on. You need to ask your IT Admin how to access the OWA server.

Client-Side vacation rules can be set up on your own computer. You do need to leave your computer running and make sure a schedule is collecting and sending mail at regular intervals though - a vacation rule won't run unless Entourage is collecting the mail!

If you are completely new to using Rules in Entourage, check out this page first.

Set up a rule that looks like this:

Important points to note are: Make sure the 'Execute' selector is set to "if ALL criteria..."; the first selection criterion is "Is Not from a Mailing List"; The second selection Criterion is "Is In Address Book". The first is critical. OoF responders sent to mailing lists annopy the heck out of a lot of people and can, in the worst case, cause a mail loop because you keep rersponding to your own vacation Notice!. The second is optional. Using it will cause the rule to respond only to those people in your address book. this prevents answers going back to spammers, but they generally use fake addresses anyway.

Now click on the 'Reply Text...' button and type the text of the reply to send to each person who mails you.

That's the basics, but if you want to refine things a little, you can make sure that each person who mails you gets only one response. Do it this way:

1. In the Address Book, set up a new group called "Vacation Rule"
2. Add a third Selection Criteria to your vacation Rule that says "Sender is not in Group 'Vacation Rule'"
3. Add a second Action to your Vacation Rule to add the sender of a received message to the Address Book Group "Vacation Rule"

Now, before sending off a Vacation Notice, the rule will check to see if it has already sent one. If it does send a notice it will add the sender to the address book group you created in step 1. This also gives you a quick and easy way to see all the people who tried to contact you while the rule was running.

Don't forget to turn the rule off and empty this group when you come back from your holiday though!

† Ever wondered why an Out Of Office rule is sometimes called an OoF rule? Its because OoF was the terminology used within Microsoft when the technology was being developed. It stand for Out Of Facility.