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Collaboration Services: Create a Vacation Message

Access the Outlook Web App (OWA) to set your vacation or out of office message.

Using Google's Chrome browser? Though you may not immediately see the text of your out of office message, the automated reply feature will still properly function.

  1. Log in to OWA at collaborate.northwestern.edu.
  2. Click Options, and click Set Automatic Replies in the drop down menu.

    The Set Automatic Replies option under the Options button at the upper-right portion of the screen.

  3. Click the Send automatic replies button. This activates automatic replies.
  4. Click Send replies only during this time period and enter a start and end date and time to automatically start and stop your automatic reply.
  5. Type the text of your away message in the text box.

    The Automatic Replies window. The radio button should be selected for Send automatic replies. The checkbox should be checked for Send replies only during this time period, and an appropriate Start and End time should be chosen, during which automatic replies will be sent. The text of the away message should be entered in the large text box.

  6. Click Send automatic reply messages to senders outside my organization if you want your vacation message to apply to messages received from outside NU.
  7. Click Send replies only to senders in my Contacts list to restrict your vacation message people in your contact list; otherwise click Send replies to all external senders.
  8. Type the text of you external away message in the text box.
  9. Click Save.

    The checkbox for Send automatic reply messages to senders outside my organization should be checked if you want to automatically reply to messages outside of NU. Then the appropriate radio button should be selected to send replies to either everyone or just people in the Contacts list. In the text box, the text of the external away message should be entered.

Last Updated: 20 December 2018

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