XADM: Out Of Office Message Is Not Sent After You Enable the Out Of Office Assistant

When you send an e-mail message to a mailbox that has the Out Of Office Assistant functionality enabled, the Out Of Office Assistant does not send an Out Of Office reply. This issue occurs with messages that originate both internally and externally.

This issue can occur if the mailbox has an alternate recipient configured on the server and the Deliver messages to both recipient and alternate recipient option is not selected. In this scenario, the incoming message does not arrive in the recipients mailbox, and the Out Of Office Assistant is not initiated.

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

To resolve this issue:

1. Click Start, point to Programs, click Microsoft Exchange, and then click Microsoft Exchange Administrator.
2. Open the properties for the mailbox that has the alternate recipient configured.
3. Click the Delivery Options tab.
4. Click Deliver messages to both recipient and alternate recipient.
5. Click Apply, and then click OK.

If you do not want the incoming messages to be stored in your mailbox, you can replace Out Of Office Assistant and alternate recipient message forwarding with traditional client-side rules. In this case, if you remove the Alternate Recipient setting from the mailbox on the server, all message forwarding is handled through rules on the client. Configure one rule to send the Out Of Office notification, and a second rule to forward the message to the alternate recipient.

For additional information about how to initiate the Out Of Office Assistant, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

This behavior is by design.

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: