Out of Office Notices

Out of Office Notices

Have you ever had the issue that you're going on holiday and plan to completely ignore your e-mail account for two weeks, but don't want to send a message to all of your contacts to inform them that you're on holiday, so will not be able to respond? Well, you're in luck. Look no further than the amazingly useful tool known as Out of Office Notices.

I'm not going to explain how to set one up, but basically once it is on, it will send an automatic reply to everyone who sends you a message. This reply can be anything that you want it to be, from "Apologies, I am currently out of office, so unable to respond. Expect delays in my reply." to "On holiday, don't bother me... lest you face the consequences." or even something as simple as "Go away, I can't respond.".

So yes, it has a lot of practical applications, and will even continue to work until a specified date, so you don't have to reapply it once it wears out. Anyway, you'll probably use it mainly in a business scenario, to alert clients that you're not in office, or on holiday, or in a meeting, something like that; the practical applications vary, and could even be used in your personal life as well (See the holiday example).

Okay, positives and negatives. Good- saves time replying and will continually work until told otherwise. Negative- you can't give personalised messages, will always need to be turned on and off manually when you want to leave or return from holiday.

Basically, in summary, Out of Office Notices are a useful tool used to pass out automated responses to e-mails.