How to turn out off office on using Exchange

exchange-2007 exchange-2003 outlook-2007

14,974

Solution 1

One really quick way is to use OWA - if you've rights on their mailbox you can browse to the OWA and stick their user account name on the end.

You can then set out of office in options.

e.g. http://servername/exchange/accountname

Solution 2

If you have the correct permissions set on their mailbox (as I would assume you do being the exchange administrator) how I do it is as follows:
Open Control Panel on your local machine, then into the Mail option.
Create an alternative profile and when prompted complete it with the user's credentials. Ensure that "Use Cached mode" is disabled otherwise you will have a copy of their emails on your machine and it will take longer to access.
Remember to tick the box to tell outloo to ask which profile to use on startup.
Open outlook and select the new profile
Set Out Of Office as per normal

I do not know of a way to set it via Exchange or if it is even possible, but I find that this is a relatively straightforward mechanism for doing this or any other user administrative tasks that they neglect to do themselves.

Solution 3

Andy Grogan has a fudged powershell technique that might be handy here?

Edit: Aah, he's got the 'finished product' here, looks like a bit of work to set up.

14,974

stead1984

I've been a member of serverfault since 2008(ish) when I started as a Network Manager role for a small pharmaceutical company. After 3+ years as a network manager, I accepted a role of Deskside Support for a large rail infrastructure business. While the role was perhaps a backwards step technically, it would provide me with the exposure to large networks and a more promising career path. As of last year my company has been acquired by Siemens, which resulted in a nearly 2 year IT integration project. I'm currently employed as an Infrastructure Support Engineer for Siemens. This role involves support of Sun Solaris 10, I have a little knowledge of Unix/Linux gained from training courses. Serverfault has always been an incredibly useful tool for me during the years and if those answers that are not applicable are always enlightening and will continue to prove it's value to me as this role develops.

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

stead1984 over 1 year

I have 3 users that are useless and have forgotten to turn out off office on, I don't want to reset their passwords and use Outlook and would like to know how to use Microsoft Exchange 2007 to turn it on instead, also how to do it in Exchange 2003 on SBS?
- Richard Gadsden over 14 years
  
  See also serverfault.com/questions/76376/… where I put a webpage I created so I could enable our helpdesk to do this without having to give them full mailbox access to every user (which is abusable).
stead1984 almost 15 years

Ideally I'd like to use Exchange as this is a regular occurence and when the 3 users are in South Africa watching the rugby it's a bit harder to chase after passwords.
Chris W almost 15 years

You don't need the password to use this approach - if you've got admin rights to the mailboxes you can login via OWA. I've used this a few times on SBS 2003 to save the hassle you mention.
Kevin Kuphal almost 15 years

In Exchange 2007, it is servername/owa/[email protected]
Dan almost 15 years

Hi theKAT007 I think you might be misinformed or your environment may be misconfigured or not an exchange server. The Out Of Office assistant sets it on Exchange and not on the local machine.
Ron almost 15 years

Chirs hit it right on the spot. The easiest way to do it is this approach.