Before you put your coworker’s email address on your out-of-office message, get their approval and discuss a plan for handling requests and passing responsibilities back when you return.
Education Details: You can always have templates ready at hand to use for varied occasions which cater to different sets of people. These will save a lot of time as well. Sample Out-of-the-office (OOTO) Automated Responses For Email. Thank you for your message. I will be out of the office …
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When Outlook is set up to send automatic replies, you’ll see a message under the ribbon with this information. Select Turn off to disable automatic out-of-office replies. If you want to modify the dates for your automatic reply or the message sent, use the steps above to modify your settings.
Remember to make sure your auto-reply has a limit to how often it sends replies to any one address. If they reply to every single email they recieve, they can cause problems: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/420oan/companywide_email_30000_employees_autoresponders/ I actually had that happen while I was on vaca, a travel agency e-mailed me with an update about my vacation from a no-reply mail box and triggered my auto reply, which triggered their “This is not a monitored mailbox” auto reply to the tune of 80,000 messages in my mailbox. It completely filled up my “available” space, so everytime I logged in and thought I had them cleared out, more would pour in. It took DAYS to delete all of them.
Hi, I will be out of the office starting [MM/DD] through [MM/DD]. If you need immediate assistance during my absence, please contact [name] at [email] or [phone]. I will respond to your emails as soon as possible upon my return on [MM/DD].
Not exactly a neutral audience, though. A number of people following the account, if not most, will be following because they share the same sense of humor. Likewise people @ed by friends.
(Aside: at my job, when you open a new browser window, a random picture of employee pets pops up. It changes every time. I could just refresh all day long.)
On the iPhone, you have the option to activate DND mode in different ways. The “Automatic Mode” and “When Connected to Car Bluetooth” will take care of while driving.
If you’re traveling to a remote, mountainous area, why not jab some fun at your lack of WiFi in your autoresponder? Plus, that makes it less likely that people will expect an immediate response or continue to email you after the first try.
My favorite was one the one that said “I am out of the office and don’t plan on ever returning.”
Thankfully, setting this up in Gmail is easy to do and only takes a few minutes. Here are step-by-step instructions for setting your out-of-office message, plus some helpful examples you can steal for your own use:
If you have questions after reading the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) below, please contact your Human Resources consultant. Winter Break Schedule: FAQs
Several of my coworkers still have page-long “Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, our department will be…” auto-replies set up 24/7, even though the basic function of our office has barely changed. I’m currently working odd part time hours right now, and if there weren’t so many of these annoying emails going around, I’d have one that clarifies my email timelines, but I don’t want to be another spammer.
Give complete details of the person they can contact if there is an urgency. If you are in charge of multiple departments, you can add more people along with their expertise area so that customers know who they should reach.
Thanks for your email! I’ll be OOO from [date] to [date] and will not be accessing email during that time.
Our office VM sends an audio file to our email. I love it, because I can apply all the filing and prioritization functions of my email inbox to the voice messages. It’s the only way I ever check my VM. I don’t even remember how to listen to messages on my phone.
It all boils down to honestly assessing your situation, deciding what degree of contact is appropriate, and then stating your intention clearly and succinctly.