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We have a distribution group on our Exchange service on Office365. The business is keen to restrict the hours that the distribution group sends messages to out of hours to reduce email distractions. So if you sent an email to the group at 10AM, it'd be queued and delivered at 7PM. Does anyone have any ideas how I can implement this on Exchange Online?

tooba
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    The solution to this isn't a *technical* solution... It's a people/policy/administrative problem. Sometimes business and management requests deserve that response. – ewwhite Jul 17 '14 at 17:10

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Well, that's a pretty silly requirement. And there's no built-in functionality to restrict sending to a distribution group based on time or day.

Having said that, there is the option to "moderate" a distribution group, such that incoming messages need to be approved prior to delivery, and this gives you the option of a hacky workaround - you could set up a moderation mailbox, and then run a script against that mailbox to approve all existing messages for delivery at 19:00, and approve any new messages that come in during "off-hours" hours.

I think that's your best shot at implementing this dubious feature request - everything else I can think of is even worse.

HopelessN00b
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  • This is an example of when the admin needs to push back against management's crazy ideas ;) – ewwhite Jul 17 '14 at 17:44
  • @ewwhite And where pushback fails, you end up implementing insanity. For example, our crazy webfilter rules, to stop employees from goofing off online. So, they read books and play games on their smartphones instead. – HopelessN00b Jul 17 '14 at 19:44
  • Appreciate it looks like restricting what employees can do but it's actually focused on reducing workload and distractions during the day by packaging admin emails into a few minutes each day. It's definitely not about restricting what people do. – tooba Jul 21 '14 at 08:32