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stead1984
Asked: 2009-06-19 01:46:47 +0800 CST

How to turn out off office on using Exchange

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I have 3 users that are useless and have forgotten to turn out off office on, I don't want to reset their passwords and use Outlook and would like to know how to use Microsoft Exchange 2007 to turn it on instead, also how to do it in Exchange 2003 on SBS?

exchange-2007 exchange-2003 outlook-2007

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    One really quick way is to use OWA - if you've rights on their mailbox you can browse to the OWA and stick their user account name on the end.

    You can then set out of office in options.

    e.g. http://servername/exchange/accountname

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  2. If you have the correct permissions set on their mailbox (as I would assume you do being the exchange administrator) how I do it is as follows:
    Open Control Panel on your local machine, then into the Mail option.
    Create an alternative profile and when prompted complete it with the user's credentials. Ensure that "Use Cached mode" is disabled otherwise you will have a copy of their emails on your machine and it will take longer to access.
    Remember to tick the box to tell outloo to ask which profile to use on startup.
    Open outlook and select the new profile
    Set Out Of Office as per normal

    I do not know of a way to set it via Exchange or if it is even possible, but I find that this is a relatively straightforward mechanism for doing this or any other user administrative tasks that they neglect to do themselves.

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  3. Andy Grogan has a fudged powershell technique that might be handy here?

    Edit: Aah, he's got the 'finished product' here, looks like a bit of work to set up.

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  4. I have my users do it on OWA. If they set it in Outlook on their computer or if you do it on yours, you will need to make sure the pc stays on and does not go to sleep. If the computer sleeps, turns off, or Outlook gets closed, mail will be routed to the mailbox like normal without an Out Of Office reply. When done on OWA, they can log out and close the browser, turn the pc off, etc... and the auto reply will still work.

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