Microsoft’s Exchange email server allow users to set Out-Of-Office replies which autorespond to people who send you email. So, if you’re on vacation, you can set Outlook/Exchange so that when Bob in Accounting sends you a message that your expense check has been processed, Exchange will automatically reply to him with whatever text is in your OoO message, like, “I’m out of the office today, Thursday the 21st, to help build a float for the annual Garlic Festival.” Bob then deletes your message and carries on. Out-of-Office provides the same functionality as the UNIX vacation(1) program.
Now, Exchange by default does NOT send replies outside the Exchange organization, so when your buddy with the @aol.com account emails you, he doesn’t get an Out Of Office reply (by default). This is by design (“…to prevent unauthorized people from learning when users are out of the office….”).
But you’re bound to have users request that you enable global Out-of-Office replies so that when any spammer, burglar, busybody, mailing list member, or other email user in the world emails you, they’ll be notified that the user isn’t at home, or monitoring their work system.
So, in standard Socratic method, allow me to delineate the folly of global Out-Of-Offices replies.
Sally: Email is broken. Out-of-Office replies don’t go to the Internet.
IT Guy: They never have. We don’t allow them.
Sally: I’m a Very Important Person, and I have customers who email me things, and if I’m out on vacation, then they need to know I’m not in. Otherwise, the company will flounder.
IT Guy: Sure thing. We’ll just set up Delegate Access so your secretary can monitor your Inbox and then contact customers who appear to have high priority issues. Easy as pie. We do it all the time.
Sally: I don’t have a secretary.
IT Guy: Ah, you must be the same sort of “Very Important Person” I am, then – I don’t have a secretary either.
Sally: I just need to automatically tell anyone who emails me that I’m out.
IT Guy: Do you want burglars to know you’re out? ["Burglars Target 'Out of Office' emails"]
Sally: Um, no.
IT Guy: Do you want to automatically send a confirmation email to any spammer who gets a piece of spam through?
Sally: No, I guess not.
IT Guy: I know you’re on several external mailing lists that customers and vendors and other industry players are members of. Do all of those mailing list members need to know your schedule, or do you think it would just annoy them?
Sally: Yeah, I can see how that might be annoying. I don’t like getting those myself.
IT Guy: Do you think it would be sensible from a security point of view, this allowing anyone in the world to learn of your absence? We actually have reviewed this; we don’t just leave global replies disabled out of malice or incompetence.
Sally: I never really thought about it that way.
IT Guy: First principles, Sally. Read Marcus Aurelius. Um…
Who really does need to know you’re going to be out?
Sally: I’m working on five different projects with customers.
IT Guy: Just send email to your project counterparts, letting them know ahead of time that you’ll be unavailable (not “out”) those days.
Sally: I suppose if something were truly urgent, then an external person would disopt for the queue-based store-and-forward method of SMTP email transactions and would opt instead for the realtime option of just calling my department number, where one of the other staff could immediately assist them. I should put my department contact information in my signature, then, shouldn’t I? And you do look so terribly sore, coughing like that. It is late, and you should go to bed.
IT Guy: OK.