Originally Posted July 6 2008

This three day weekend reminds me of a question that I am frequently asked, 'How do I setup an 'Out of Office message' in Outlook?'  I am a little reluctant to share the process for reasons I will explain a little later.  But, depending on how your e-mail is setup there are a few different ways.

If you use Microsoft Outlook and are in a company that has an Outlook Exchange Server (a piece of software your IT guys use to manage your company's emails), you can simply setup your Out of Office message in Outlook by:
1. Tools > Out of Office Assistant

If you don't have this option then you have to setup your Out of Office Assistant a different way.  Essentially, you have to log in to your e-mail management web page and create the message in there.  Each service has its own process.  Here are a few links to help.

GMail - Vacation Responder
http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=25922

Network Solutions - Auto Responder
http://customersupport.networksolutions.com/article.php?id=326

Go Daddy - AutoResponder
http://help.godaddy.com/article/369

Yahoo - Vacation Response
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/original/basics/basics-52.html

The reason I am apprehensive to have people turn-on an Out of Office message is because your message will be sent to everyone including spammers.  So in your absence, you can be notifying a spammer that your email address is a live and valid address.  This is not so much of a problem if you (or your IT department) have some type of anti-spam protection.

The other reason is because of security.  Since so many people work from their homes, why tell everyone that you will be out of the office until ___?

As a reminder, be sure to turn-off your responder when you get back into the office.

That's it!