Out of Office Notifications

Marriners-

Following up on an Anonymous Inbox submission – PLEASE help out your other team members by updating your Outlook when you are taking a half or full day off. This ensures that it does not look like you are free and get booked for a meeting you won’t be able to attend.

If you are OOO, please carve out a few minutes to:

1. Block your calendar
2. Set up an automatic Out of Office reply

As a quick reference guide …

For PC users:

Blocking calendars

1. From your Outlook pane, go to Calendar view (calendar icon in bottom left)
2. Select “New Appointment”
3. Enter OOO into the Title field
4. For full days out of the office, select a start time of 8 AM and an end time of 8 PM or click the “all day” option (for half days out of the office, adjust the times accordingly)
5. On the top bar – change it from Busy (blue solid color) to Out of Office (purple solid color)
6. Select the “Save & Close” button

Automatic OOO reply

1. From your Outlook Inbox pane, go to “File”
2. Click on the Automatic Replies (Out of Office) tile
3. Select the radio button for “Send automatic replies”
4. Update the messages in the boxes for Inside My Organization and Outside My Organization
5. Click OK and the replies will begin immediately unless you select “only send during this time range” and fill in specific dates & times
6. When you return to work, please go back to the Automatic Replies (Out of Office) tile and hit the “Turn off” button

For Mac users (this is using “New Outlook”):

Blocking calendars

1. From your Outlook pane, go to the calendar view (calendar icon in bottom left)
2. Select “New Event”
3. Enter OOO into the “New Event” field
4. For full days out of the office, you can select a start time of 8 AM and an end time of 8 PM or click the “all day” option (for half days out of the office, adjust the times accordingly)
5. On the top bar (left side drop down) – change it from Busy (blue solid color) to Out of Office (purple solid color)
6. Select the “Save & Close” button

Automatic OOO reply

1. From your Outlook Inbox pane, go to Tools and select the “Automatic Replies” drop down
2. Select the radio button for “Send automatic replies for account”
3. Update the messages in the boxes for Inside My Organization and Outside My Organization
4. Click OK and the replies will begin immediately unless you select the radio button “send replies only during this time period” and fill in specific dates & times
5. When you return to work, please go back to the Automatic Replies (Out of Office) tile and hit the “Turn off” button

Note: once you set up the rule, it stays in your automatic replies to easily update the next time you are out.