If you use Outlook both on your personal computer and your work computer, there are no doubt times when you wish your home computer could do the all things your work one can.  But because your work computer is probably set up on an Exchange Server network, that isn’t completely possible.

Some work arounds can be found, however, such as a way to automatically notify someone when you are out of the “office.”  At work, you know you just have to go to your Tools drop down menu and select the Out of Office Assistant.  A window will pop up letting you compose a reply message to any emails coming in during a specific time period.  You can even have one message sent to people from within your office, and a totally different message sent to anyone outside.

With no Exchange Server, things are a little more difficult to set up, but even then it’s only a two step process.

STEP ONE

First you need to create an email template.  This will be used to reply to people who email you while you are gone.  You only have to do this once, but the next time you use it, you will have to change it if you decide to mention specific dates in the information.

On the File menu point to New, or from the New icon drop down, select Mail message.  Enter a Subject and then whatever message you want to leave, such as, “Ha, ha, I’m off toFijiand you’re not!”  Instead of selecting a recipient,. however, click the Microsoft Office button in the upper left corner of the window and select Save As. Then, in the Save As window, select Outlook Template (*.oft).  Give your file a name and click Save.  You can then close the original message window without saving.

STEP TWO

On the Tools drop down menu, select Rules and Alerts.  Don’t be scared, Rules are your friends, intended to make your Outlook life much easier in the long run.  Click the New Rule button and then on the window that pops up, pick “Check messages when they arrive.”  Click Next to continue.

Under “Which condition(s) do you want to check?,” select the sent only to me check box and any other criteria that you want, and then click Next.  If you see a dialog box informing you that this rule will be applied to every message that you receive, click Yes.

In the next window, select “reply using a specific template” then click the blue hyperlink that shows up in the Step 2 box at the bottom of the window.  In the Select a Reply Template dialog box, in the Look In box, click User Templates in File System.  If the template you created doesn’t show up, click the Browse button and navigate to the folder you saved the template to, then select it.  Click Open and then Next.

Thenext window that pops up allows you to make exceptions to the rule if you want any.  If you do, don’t forget to complete any criteria that show up as a blue hyperlink in the bottom selections.  Click Next and then give the rule a name and click Finish. Therule will now cause your template email to be sent out once per email address while you are gone.

If you are not quite ready to start using the rule, uncheck the box right in front of it before selecting Finish, just remember to come back to the window and check it right before you head out the door with your suitcase.  Likewise, don’t forget to come back to the Rules box and uncheck it when you return home.  Unless you’d like to extend that vacation for just a little bit longer.

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