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Introduction | Automatic replies to messages | Mail forwarding | Allowing others access to your Exchange folders
Email stored on Unix based mail servers can be forwarded onto other email addresses by
the use of a .forward file in your user area (M: drive).
If your email is stored on a Windows NT based mail server running Microsoft Exchange
(which most email is), then .forward files will not work. The alternative
is to use the Outlook Out of Office Assistant. As well as mail
forwarding, Microsoft Exchange has a number of other features which you might find useful.
| Using the Out of Office Assistant |
In Outlook, ensure that you are in the Inbox (i.e. your list of email messages is visible in the main Outlook window). From the Tools menu, select Out of Office Assistant. This will display the main Out of Office Assistant window.
The first part of the Out of Office Assistant window allows you to specify whether you are in or out of the office. If you want people to know that you are currently away from the office, you might like to click on the I am currently Out of the Office radio button, then type a message into the AutoReply field (example below):
This means that when somebody sends you an email and the I am currently Out of the Office radio button is selected, the Microsoft Exchange Server will automatically reply to the email with the message you have typed in the AutoReply field. You can try this out by sending an email to yourself while the Out of the Office feature is turned on.
Warning! The Information Systems Service recommends that you do not use the AutoReply feature. Firstly, since it will reply to SPAM, it informs spammers that your email is valid, so is likely to lead to an increase in the amount of SPAM you receive. Secondly, although the AutoReply feature is intelligent enough to know that it should not send more than one AutoReply to the same person, you should use the feature with care if you are on a lot of mailing lists. This is because if a person sends email to a mailing list of which you are a member, they may receive an Out of Office AutoReply from you, which will annoy them. Worse. it may go to the entire list, and annoy a large number of people. If you feel you need the feature, it is best to leave lists temporarily while you are away. An alternative to sending out AutoReplies is to either forward selected messages, or allow other people access to your email, so they can answer any urgent messages.
Outlook allows you to forward messages onto another email address when the Out of the Office function is turned on. If you would like to do this, click on the Add Rule button at the bottom of the main Out of Office Assistant window. When the Edit Rule window appears, tick the Forward check box., then type an email address in the To field (or click on the To button to find a user in the Address Book. The Method field can also be used to change the type of email forwarding.
The top part of the Edit Rule window enables you to specify which messages are affected by this rule. If you don't specify which messages should be affected by the rule, when you click on the OK button in the Edit Rule window, Outlook will assume that all incoming messages should be processed using this rule.
Once you have configured mail forwarding (or any other Rule), you can subsequently edit that rule by double-clicking on the appropriate entry in the rules field at the bottom of the main Out of Office Assistant window:
Warning! The Information Systems Service recommends that you use the Forward feature with care You must be very confident of the administration of the account to which you forward the mail. If the remote account rejects your email, perhaps because the inbox there exceeds its quota, then your mail goes into a loop as failure messages are repeatedly set back and forth between Essex and the remote site. This can only be avoided by not forwarding email from the remote site back to the remote site, and that functionality is not available in the Out of Office Wizard. It is far better to forward the mail with a suitably-restricted Outlook rule, or have the Service temporarily forward your email. This webpage discusses these options.
Allowing others access to your Exchange folders
If you are going to be away from the office for a few days and there is someone else who can do your job functions, you might consider allowing them to access some or all of your Exchange folders. This would allow the person to read your email, view your Calendar, etc.
To allow other people to view your Exchange folders, click on the appropriate folder in Outlook with the right mouse button, and select the Properties option. When the Folder Properties window appears, click on the Permissions click-tab. This part of the window allows you to specify which users can access this folder. Add a new user by clicking on the Add button, then selecting the appropriate user from the Add User window. Once a user has been added, ensure that they have been given the correct permissions for this folder by changing the settings in the Permissions part of this window. The Roles drop-down list contains a number of suggested settings. If you want somebody to be able to read your folder, but not edit, create or delete items, then the role of Reviewer is recommended (as shown in the image below).
To view another person's Exchange folders, use the Other User's Folder command accessible from the Open sub-menu of the File menu. When the Open Other User's Folder window appears, type the name of the person into the form field. Alternatively, click on the Name button to display the Select Name window, which allows you to easily find the correct mailbox name of a user. Once you have found the mailbox name of a user, select the folder of this user that you want to open from the Folder drop-down list (shown below):
Obviously, you can only view another person's Exchange folders if they have given you permission to do so.