Hi - this is just a general question about handling large volumes of mailmessages - and people on vacation.
We currently have a custom office-to-office mailing system (we have about 15 offices around the world). This is a form in each users mail database that will send the messages to a central distribution database. An agent that runs there will figure out who is to get the message, and then send the message on.
Anyway, I won’t go into too much details, however one of the strengths of this system is that when people go on vacation, we can just add them to our vacation group, and the distribution agent will not send to the people in this group.
We are trying to move away from this system though and back to standard mail, as this form does not work very well on blackberrys etc, but this vacation thing can be a showstopper.
How do other companies with a large amount of messages handle this situation? Is the employees mailboxes simply flooded when their on vacation?
stein
Subject: Handling large message flow
I guess there are a few options. 1 & 2 are fairly obvious but I’m just covering all bases…
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Mail Rules can be set in the users mail file to delete messages received while they are away. They can also be filed to a folder or copied to another recipient.
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Use out of office to notify senders that you are on vacation. Each sender is only notified once.
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You could set up a forwarding address in the users public person doc so that any mail addressed to them duiring vacation is automatically rerouted to another mail file. This 2nd mail file might be a massive tipping ground for unwanted mail. You could set the db to purge docs older than 5 days for example. Else the 2nd mail file could be a public mail-in database so that users can respond to messages while the recipient is on vacation. This is probably closer to what you have now… ??
Michael
Subject: RE: Handling large message flow
Thanks for your input - ofcourse the new mail routing system will have a bunch of groups for the various offices and departments, however mail sent directly to people on vacation want to be kept (these might come from internal or external senders), so option 1 and 3 might not work.
I think what we need is ie. a database where people can put their vacation, and an agent will automatically remove people from the groups they are in, and put them back when vacation is over.
Someone else must have this problem so just trying to see what others are doing.
Subject: RE: Handling large message flow
Why does the OOO option not work for you? OOO tracks who has sent mail to the user and does not auto respond any further to new messages from that address.
Shawn
Subject: RE: Handling large message flow
You misunderstood - OOO’s works fine, however this does not solve the problem with receiving hundreds or maybe thousands of messages while being on vacation.
Subject: RE: Handling large message flow
Each individual can delegate rights to their email in Inbox > Tools > Preferences > Access and Delegation.
They can give their subordinates rights to view and respond to mail and calendar items when they set their OOO dates.
When they return, they can revoke it.
Shawn
Subject: RE: Handling large message flow
In some org , they are increasing the user quota for temporary base and once they return back restoring to original after user archive all mails.