Managing Out Of Office Messages

Out of Office Messages (OOF) have grown up. Not everyone has noticed so here’s a little refresher.

We now have OOF that gets sent to people inside your company and separate ones that get sent to people outside of your company. You can also turn OOF on and off using any of your mail devices that have Outlook on them. (Outlook is available for iPhone now) And best of all you can schedule them to turn ON and then OFF automatically. This let’s you do it when you think of it, instead of when you’re in the middle of packing your suitcase.

There are three ways you can update your OOF.  You can go into Outlook and go to the File tab.  Select Automatic Replies:

managing messages

That will bring up this screen.

managing messages

As you will notice you can schedule your automatic replies to start on a certain date and even the time.   You can also schedule them to end on a specific date and time.  You can customize what is sent inside your organization and outside of your organization. 

However sometimes this is an after thought and you get home and think “Dog gone it I forgot to set up my Out of Office.”  You can set this up from home from your computer, your phone or your iPad so long as you have an internet connection!

Login to the portal with your user name and password.  http://portal.office.com.  It will ask you for your user name and password.

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Go into the Mail App, at the bottom left of the screen shown here.  This will open up Outlook Online.

Then go to the top right hand of the screen and click on the gear or settings icon, as shown here.  It will bring a drop down menu up, then select Automatic replies.

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If you’ve just got your phone with you and the computer is already packed, then go ahead and use your phone to setup your OOF.  Open your Mail App and check the settings button. If you’ve got a fairly new phone, then you should find an OOF settings option there too.

managing messages

One final tip. Now that OOF is available everywhere, use it liberally! Email etiquette demands an very quick response. If you’re not going to be able to respond quickly, then use this feature to let people know.

– Amy

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p.s. Did you know that you’re probably the only person in your office that is getting our blog posts? Forwarded it on or have them sign up for our list

Some content inspired by Amy Ewalds excellent blog.

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