Score:1

Server

Odd behavior between Outlook client-based automatic reply forwarding and Exchange Powershell

Billie Kincaid

8/14/24, 3:03 PM

At my current company we're running an on-prem Exchange 2016 email server, and when we have to manage email forwarding for employee absences in certain departments that need coverage, we have users' Outlook clients set up with an automatic reply forwarding rule to forward emails to a shared mailbox for the department so emails from customers don't go unanswered. This is great for planned absences obviously, but sometimes we need to turn the automatic replies and forwarding on for unplanned absences as well. Normally I just toggle the automatic replies and thus the forwarding rule on through Exchange Powershell using Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration. However, I've noticed that when I do this, once the user comes back and turns off automatic replies in their Outlook client, their mail forwarding rule is still being applied until I go back into Exchange Powershell and disable the automatic replies using Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration again. The odd thing is that when the user turns off the automatic replies in their client, the automatic replies turn off right away without issue. It's just the forwarding rule that sticks around until I disable the already-disabled automatic replies on the server end.

So I'm wondering if there's a step or something I'm missing in this process/setup where something is not telling Exchange to disable the forwarding rule from the client side, even though the automatic replies are turned off. Anyone encountered anything like this before?

I suppose I could use Powershell to manually remove the automatic reply rule and then just use Powershell to forward at the same time I turn on the automatic replies, but I really love the convenience of just toggling the automatic replies on to enable the forwarding.

2 + 1

powershell

mail-forwarding

auto-reply

exchange-2016

Billie Kincaid

8/16/24, 4:26 PM

Since there's some confusion about what I mean by forwarding rule, please refer to this link: https://www.msoutlook.info/question/forward-only-when-automatic-reply-enabled Toggling these on and off through the client **only** makes them behave normally. If I use Powershell to turn on automatic replies, it also enables the forwarding rule, but then when the user turns automatic replies off in the client, the forwarding still occurs until I use PS to "disable" (in quotes because they stop sending autoreplies when the user turns them off in the client).

Score:0

Server

Jan

8/15/24, 5:09 AM

Normally I just toggle the automatic replies and thus the forwarding rule on through Exchange Powershell using Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration

I just checked the documentation of Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration and there is no parameter that configures forwarding to another mailbox. The autoreply can only automatically reply to the sender, not forward it somewhere. Not sure what script you are using but the behavior you are seeing is expected. In the Outlook client, the autoreply gets disabled correctly, but the forwarding rule (setup in another way) will still be in place.

+ 5

Billie Kincaid

8/16/24, 4:15 PM

Yes, I'm aware there is no parameter of Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration that configures forwarding to another mailbox. What I'm saying is that in the Outlook client, users have an automatic reply forwarding rule set up that is toggled on when I use Powershell to turn on their automatic replies. That's fine and good and what I'd expect. The odd part is that the user turning off auto replies in their client does not disable the forwarding as it should.

Jan

8/17/24, 5:34 AM

That's not what I would expect at all. I have never heard of a forwarding rule that gets enabled automatically when you enable autoreplies. Care to explain more about this mechanism?

Billie Kincaid

8/18/24, 4:32 PM

See this link: https://www.msoutlook.info/question/forward-only-when-automatic-reply-enabled

Jan

8/22/24, 5:41 AM

Wow I never knew this was a thing, this makes my answer look really out of place

Billie Kincaid

8/28/24, 2:01 PM

Haha, not very often a newbie on here gets to teach someone else something new I imagine! I just haven't been able to tease out how the autoreply forwarding links to whatever variables on the back end of things to figure out why the users are able to turn off their automatic replies but the forwarding persists. Might just have to abandon the auto-reply forwarding rule and set the forwarding with the -DeliverToMailboxAndForward commandlet instead.

Score:0

Server

JarvisWX

8/16/24, 8:09 AM

I think it's because the forwarding rule takes precedence over the autoreply setting of the Outlook client

+ 1

Billie Kincaid

8/16/24, 4:18 PM

The forwarding rule is configured as part of an automatic reply rule in the Outlook client. Normally, it would be turned on and off by the user when they turn automatic replies on and off in their Outlook client. My question is why, when I use Powershell to turn autoreply on, and the user then turns autoreply off in the client, the forwarding rule that is tied to the automatic replies persists. The automatic replies, however, are turned off normally. They should be linked together, you see.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Odd behavior between Outlook client-based automatic reply forwarding and Exchange Powershell

Post an answer

Most people don’t grasp that asking a lot of questions unlocks learning and improves interpersonal bonding. In Alison’s studies, for example, though people could accurately recall how many questions had been asked in their conversations, they didn’t intuit the link between questions and liking. Across four studies, in which participants were engaged in conversations themselves or read transcripts of others’ conversations, people tended not to realize that question asking would influence—or had influenced—the level of amity between the conversationalists.