How to turn Out-of-Office replies on or off in OWA (Exchange 2016)

Synopsis

This article shows how to turn out-of-office automatic replies on for your Exchange 2016 account using OWA

Prerequisite

A Sherweb hosted Exchange 2016 account

How to

1. In Outlook Web App, click on the Options icon (gear icon).

2. Select Set automatic replies. 

3. You're brought to the automatic replies page. Select Send automatic replies. 

4. If you would like the replies to be sent for a limited period of time, set the dates in the Start time and End time fields. 

5. Now edit the email template for the replies to your colleagues under the Send a reply once to each sender inside my organization with the following message section. 

6. You can choose to activate the out-of-office automatic replies for your external contacts too. Check the Send automatic reply messages to senders outside my organization.

If you want to send the replies only to people in your contacts list, select Send replies only to senders in my Contacts only. Otherwise, let the default option selected (Send replies to all external senders).

7. Make sure you click on save before leaving the page. A warning will remind you to do so if you don't when you click on another page link.

Note: Whenever you open your mailbox in OWA while your out-of-office settings are active, a reminder will be displayed indicating that "Automatic replies are currently on" with an option to turn them off. Just ignore the warning.

Turn the Out-of-Office automatic replies off

8. If you defined start and end dates, there is no need to manually turn off the automatic replies. The system will do it for you. 

If you did not define start and end dates, or would like to manually turn off your current out-of-office settings, go through Steps 1 and 2 above. Select the Don't send automatic replies option. 

Note: you may simply click on Yes at the display of the above mentioned warning message (Step 7 note). 

Should you need any further help, do not hesitate to contact us. 

Applicable to

All Sherweb hosted Exchange 2016 accounts