Enabling the Out of Office Auto Response feature in Outlook (also called Vacation Mode by some) is a handy way of letting co-workers or customers know your away from the Office (vacation / holiday etc..) and not checking email regularly. Turning on the feature is very simple both from the Outlook desktop client (outlook 2000/2003/2007) and remotely using the Outlook Web Access client.
As is the new custom, first I’ll demonstrate the steps using a groovy How-To Video, then the Step-By-Step with screenshots.
How-to Enable the Microsoft Outlook Out of Office Assistant (Auto Response)
1. Open Outlook, Click Tools, Out of Office Assistant
2. Click Radio Button I am currently Out of the Office, Type the Text you wish to be sent to the people who send you email (note my example text below) and Click OK
GROOVY! Your Done!
The text Out of Office will be displayed on the bottom right corner of your Outlook client as a reminder that your Out of Office Assistant is enabled and your Out of Office Auto-Reply will respond to anyone who sends you email. I think Microsoft did this because many people (myself included) forget to turn off the Out of Office Assistant when they return to the office. Granted, only 1 Out of Office auto-reply will be sent to each Sender however the reminder is handy.
The Out of Office Reminder also has another purpose, Disabling the Out of Office Auto-Reply Assistant!
To Disable simply Click the Down Arrow on the Out of Office Reminder and Click Turn off Out of Office auto-replies
Groovy! All set? Now hit the beach!
best video yet. although a very simple how-to, you actually taught me something on turning off the out-of-office assistant via the bottom right corner of outlook. Nice. I always went into the Tools menu to turn off the out of office.
Thanks!
@alexmvp,
Excellent feedback. I think that’s the 3rd groovyVideo I’ve made so the comment is appreciated. Starting to figure it out I think.
Thanks! Awesome!
Mr. Groove,
Your video was excellent. You are easy to understand and you have a great speaking voice. I still have a question for you, however. I have an auto-reply set but when I select Tools from the toolbar, “Out of Office” is not a selection. Is there somewhere else I need to look in order to turn this feature off?
Thanks!
LH
@Leah Hampton,
HI Leah and welcome to the groovy community! Thank you for the kind words! A lot of work goes into the site so it’s nice to hear such great feedback!
To turn off your Out of Office, have you tried the technique I demonstrate at 1:10 on the video in the article? Also, are you running Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2003? And is this a work email account?
Thanks!
Great video, very helpful. In Outlook 2003, when we came back to the office, a message would pop-up and remind us that the Out-of-Office assistant was on. I thought it was like that 2007 but since we “upgraded” to SP2, that reminder is no longer there. Was that one of the enhancements of SP2?
@fisherman23,
NO I don’t think so… Something you can look forward to however is the new functionality between Outlook 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 or 2010. With the newer versions of Exchange you actually get a new menu in Outlook 2007 Out of Office that let’s you setup a range of time for how long you will be out of the office AND, you can also customize the message for internal and external responses. I’ll have to write that one up.
I do not see an out office assistant under the tools menu.
Hi Theresa. The Out of Office feature in Outlook is only available in corporate environments where your Mailbox is hosted on a Microsoft Exchange Server. You can however get the same functionality (mostly) using Outlook Rules and Alerts. Here’s a Step-by-Step that explains how-to set it up: http://www.groovypost.com/howto/microsoft/outlook/send-out-of-office-response-outlook-2007-exchange-server/
awesome!!! =)
Is there a way to make Outlook 2007 give me a pop-up reminder that my Out of Office Assistant is on? I REALLY miss that.