Outlook 2010, autoreply if I am out of office

Question

Is it possible to create an standard auto-reply in outlook if the calendar shows that I am "out of office" ?

It could be just a few hours that im "out of office", so the message must specify the period automatic ?

Thanks for the reply.

Answer 1

Outlook doesn't do this directly but you can do this with a macro.

OOF (Out Of Office) Automation is a VBScript-based automation of switching the OOF Assistant on automatically when the respective user has entered an "away" appointment and back to off when there is no "away" appointment anymore.

This works by utilizing CDO externally using the Task Scheduler, e.g. all 30 minutes. There is also an internal solution to be found at CDOLive. However, I had a MAPI problem when implementing it, as my Outlook OOF Message was suddenly out of sync with the message modified within the script.

'TO CONFIGURE: Change "ServerName" to the name of your Exchange Server
Const sServerName = "OEBFASRV02"

'TO CONFIGURE: Change "MailboxName" to the name 
'of an administrative mailbox on the server specified above
Dim sProfileInfo    ' the MAPI logon profile
sProfileInfo = sServerName & vbLf & "Administrator"

'TO CONFIGURE: Change placeholders and 
'infixes to reflect your used languages 
'(2 at most, if more are needed then change the code yourself...)
Const placeHolderLang1 = "<Datum>"
Const placeHolderLang2 = "<Date>"
Const infixFrom1 = "von "
Const infixFrom2 = "from "
Const infixTo1 = " bis "
Const infixTo2 = " to "
Const infixOn1 = "am "
Const infixOn2 = "on "

'TO CONFIGURE: Send Mails to these people in case of error.
Const ErrMailDistributionList = "rkapl"

Log.vbs

Log.vbs is a separately usable, simple Logger class. It can be used in other scripts as follows:

Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
ExecuteGlobal CreateObject(_
    "Scripting.FileSystemObject").OpenTextFile("Log.vbs", 1).ReadAll

' PathToLogFolder.. (default = defaultLogPath in Log.vbs)
' NameOfLogFile.. (default = scriptname)
' maxLevelToBeLogged.. 0 = ERROR, _
' 1 = WARN, 2 = INFO, 3 = DEBUG (default)
' CommaSeparatedErrMailDistributionListString... 
' e.g. "admin1, admin2, admin3" (default = defaultMailRecipients in Log.vbs)
' ErrMailSender.. (default = defaultMailSender in Log.vbs)
' ErrMailSubject.. (default = defaultMailSubject in Log.vbs)
Set theLogger = new_Logger(Array(PathToLogFolder,NameOfLogFile,_
    maxLevelToBeLogged,CommaSeparatedErrMailDistributionListString, _
    ErrMailSender,ErrMailSubject))

theLogger.LogInfo "Info Message"
theLogger.LogWarn "Warning Message"
theLogger.LogError "Error Message"
theLogger.LogStream (WshShell.Exec object) 
'logs stderr output of Exec object as 
'LogError messages, all other are logged as LogInfo
theLogger.LogFatal "Fatal Message (stops the script)"

However, it also needs to be configured before use:

'TO CONFIGURE: Send Mails to these default 
'people in case of error (if not set by using script).
Const defaultMailRecipients = "rkapl,mkovacs,gnebenfuehr,mhoessl,gschrenk"
'TO CONFIGURE: The default sender of the error mails
Const defaultMailSender = "[e-mail]"
'TO CONFIGURE: The default subject of error mails
Const defaultMailSubject = "Process Error"
'TO CONFIGURE: The file, where internal errors are logged
Const internalLogFile = _
    "\\oebfasrv01\marktdaten\Logs\Log.vbs.internalErrs.log"
'TO CONFIGURE: The folder, where log files are being put
Const defaultLogPath = "\\oebfasrv01\marktdaten\Logs"

Source for all the above, and extra detail such as installation and help using Task Scheudler