Thank you for your email. I am currently on furlough indefinitely and will not be checking email during this time. Please reach out to my colleague, Darius Robinson, a project manager at the museum who can answer any questions or help you find the right contact while I’m out. He can be reached at [email protected].
Note: If you don't see Automatic Replies, use Rules and Alerts to set up your out-of-office message.
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If you depend on iCloud emails, you can set the vacation response right from your iCloud Email Settings. Log in to www.icloud.com and select the Mail. Once you open the mail app on the browser, click on the Settings icon from the left bottom of the sidebar.
Out-Of-Office templates (OOO) are a type of auto-responder that instruct eDesk to reply automatically to messages that arrive during one-off office closures, e.g., during a national holiday. For example, a customer sends your company a message on Christmas Day, but the office closed at 6pm on Christmas Eve and will not reopen until the 29th December. If you have set up an OOO template for this holiday period, eDesk will immediately respond to the customer with a message that reads : "Thanks for contacting Joe's Bikes! Just to confirm that we've received your message and that a member of our team will respond as soon as possible. Wishing you a very Happy Holiday from everybody at Joe's Bikes". This message is pre-written as an OOO template and is set up to be triggered for any customer messages that arrive between 6pm on 24th December and 8am on 29th December. You can use OOO templates to auto-respond to messages during any one-off time period when your team is unavailable to respond in person. Setting up OOO templates is easy - we'll show you how! Note: To access this tour you must be an Admin or have permission to access Templates. To find out more about this, click here.
Kate Sullivan is a work and wellbeing psychologist and doctoral researcher who holds an M.S. in applied psychology from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and specializes in non-traditional careers and helping people craft their best, most satisfying work lives. She regularly writes about work-life balance and modern careers at constellationcareers.com and for leading business publications.
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As long as you’ve covered the basics—dates of your absence and who to contact in your absence—you should be good to go.
Honest communication, even in the form of an email auto reply, is a roadmap. It helps people understand how best to help you and, in turn, allows them to better help themselves. Straightforward expectation setting is a way to be respectful of your coworkers’ time and pressures, but most importantly, it’s a way to be respectful of and guard your time. Even if you don’t feel an intense need to be more open in your workplace correspondence, consider modeling the behavior for others who work with you or, especially, those who work for you. It’s a small change in behavior but it’s a meaningful one. And this summer is the perfect time to start.
My absolute favorite was the one that literally said “hodilay”. Typo included, capitalization, or any other words, not.
I typically say “thanks for your message, I’m out until blah date, with periodic access to email” or no access depending. I list contacts who are willing to pitch in if necessary, and list the day AFTER my return that I’ll be able to address messages.
But some of us just aren’t as lucky. Or if we’re traveling during the winter and heading up north — well, we’re going to run into some snow, aren’t we?
“We hope you that this holiday season finds you enjoying every single minute of it. We are aware that this is the time of the year everyone is looking forward to and we are no different from you in that regard. Since we hope to spend some quality time with our families and friends, holiday closure period is ahead of us. We hope that you will enjoy the holidays just as much as we will.
I think this makes a lot of sense for a 2-3 month absence, when there wouldn’t be much point in reading and responding to things when you get back. Questions will have been answered and issues resolved by different means.
I’ll reply to your message promptly when I return. Should you require immediate assistance, please send an email to [contact name] at [contact email] in my absence.
I think people still understand that out of office can refer to home office as well. But you could say “unavailable” or “away from work”.
Not an OOO issue but the comment about PTSD from OldJob reminded me of this. I am a recreational sailor who often made longer offshore trips as my vacation. OldBoss INSISTED that we provide contact instructions. Mine was some variant of “Dial O and ask for the Marine Operator. Give them [name of boat], [call sign] and [approximate location by date] along with your name and credit card number. We will be monitoring Channel 16 at these times…..” Never got a call. Word spread and there was a sudden epidemic of sailing vacations in my office!
I’m with you on this one. Management has access to a mansion and a townhouse in two different fabulous vacation destinations and it burns my butt every time I see an out of office from one of them (98% white men) going on about how they’ll be enjoying this perk. In the meantime, a few years back we had to eliminate free coffee at the offices because business was not good enough (it was eventually brought back after company president realized after a year that people were really pissed).