Instantaneous Out-of-Office in "Hannover"

July 19 2006

A comment made by Domino agent guru Julie Kadashevich in the Lotus Partner Forum prompted me to take another look at her Lotusphere 2006 presentation.  What's the news?

Image:Instantaneous Out-of-Office in "Hannover"

Wow, I had no idea -- what Julie is saying is that the Out-of-the-Office process in "Hannover" will provide instant response to incoming mail, and will be part of the core code as opposed to having to run in the agent manager process.  Very cool!

Ed Brill Category:  Notes and Domino 8  Add/View Comments [32]

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  1. 1  Volker Weber http://vowe.net | 7/19/2006 12:33:57 PM

    You mean, it no longer sucks? ;-)

  1. 2  Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 7/19/2006 12:58:24 PM

    @1 - Neither Ed nor Julie said that. :-P

    @Ed - Do you know if Hannover will let you disable OOA from either the Notes client or DWA, rather than having to go back to the one where you set it to disable it?

    I am glad to see something being done about the Out of Office situation for Hannover. If all the changes Julie listed make it to the final release, and it works reliably, you will have addressed a serious sore point among users who travel frequently.

  1. 3  Curt Carlson  | 7/19/2006 1:00:18 PM

    I have been advising folks only use this feature for internal mails only. Auto responding to Internet mail is just a verification that the spammer has a live one.

  1. 4  Chris Whisonant http://cwhisonant.blogspot.com | 7/19/2006 1:36:27 PM

    @Hannover - So is that the codename for DominoNext as well? :)

    @Instand OoO - Finally.

    Lotus Support: "So, have you modified the mail template?"

    Me: "Yes, I have enabled OoO to run every 15 minutes rather than 6 HOURS!" ;)

  1. 5  Brian Green  | 7/19/2006 2:17:16 PM

    ...hoping to see a Sametime Connect (pc, mobile) plug-in to set OOO.

  1. 6  Stuart McIntyre http://macsfacts.blogpsot.com | 7/19/2006 2:24:45 PM

    For the second time in a week, hurrah at last ;-)

    I always argued that the Notes OoO agent was not a major issue - why would you need an instant reply etc. However 9 months at an Outlook/Exchange shop has disabused me of that notion - the OoO feature works properly, hence everyone uses it.

  1. 7  Colin Williams http://www.guttedgeek.com | 7/19/2006 2:41:53 PM

    This is very good news...if a bit late.

    The OoO agent is the biggest support issue we have with Notes. All caused by a bug which stops 90% of our users turning the darn thing off.

  1. 8  Scott http://thebigredshark.com | 7/19/2006 3:08:16 PM

    This is fantastic. Users always wonder why OoO isn't instantaneous - at least we won't have to explain any longer. :-)

  1. 9  Mike Brown  | 7/19/2006 3:38:56 PM

    I hope the "Auto disables when the period ends" feature is an option. I rather like the way that the user has to disable it manually (in case they didn't make it back when they thought they were going to).

    Cheers,

    - Mike

  1. 10  Colin Williams http://www.guttedgeek.com | 7/19/2006 3:42:13 PM

    @9 - but doesn't it stop sending notices to senders if outside the away dates?

    Its always really bothered me that it doesn't turn itself off automatically.

  1. 11  Andy B http://andy.the-broyles.com | 7/19/2006 4:24:50 PM

    While I was reading the headline a thought came to mind regarding what I would like to see in a future OoO instance...

    Setting OoO via a calender entry rather then enabling/disabling the agent/service.

    Say that I create an all day event that spans seven days (like a vacation)...why not have an option for OoO replies settable right there? I mean the products are all ready integrated, why not 'really' integrate the feture where it should be?

  1. 12  Matt  | 7/19/2006 4:44:53 PM

    As I dimly recall, Declan Lynch picked this up when it was announced at LotusSphere - although it was pretty well hidden :) I think this is a great feature, but seeing it on your blog reminds me that, while we're hearing loads about the Hannover client (which I don't mind at all, btw :) there seems to be a bit of reluctance to talk specifics about what we might see on the RNext server. From what I've picked up here and there, it sounds like there might be some pretty cool features - but I for one would love to hear some of the details...

  1. 13  Flemming Riis  | 7/19/2006 4:53:26 PM

    You might want to size down the 200k picture

  1. 14  GarryL  | 7/19/2006 5:30:57 PM

    Good.

    Never understood why this was an agent in the first place, and it just confuses new users.

    You can achieve the same results now by setting the agent to run when new mail arrives, of course.

  1. 15  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/19/2006 6:51:10 PM

    @12 no reluctance, but the client is the focus of the next release. There are new server features like mail recall, spamguru, new admin tools, and of course this OoO rewrite, but it is more of a client release than a server one (as opposed to 7.0, which is more of a server release than a client one).

    @13 is 200K too large for posting an image? I already decreased the colour depth and size.

  1. 16  Colin Williams http://www.guttedgeek.com | 7/19/2006 7:10:56 PM

    Its large for what it is. Just converting it to a GIF cuts it in half. Really, for the vector nature of the image, GIF or PNG would be more appropriate and there would be no compression artifacts so would look nicer as well!

  1. 17  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/19/2006 7:36:40 PM

    OK, got it. I use Irfanview which I know can save as GIF, so will start doing so in the future.

  1. 18  Andrew Price http://www.healthspace.ca | 7/19/2006 9:35:25 PM

    Great to see another long-standing 'wart' getting some strong medicine. :)

    200k is fine for me. PNG is a nice format imo.

  1. 19  Matthias Leisi http://matthias.leisi.net/ | 7/20/2006 5:25:48 AM

    Finally! To be honest, I do not understand why it took so long to come up with such a basic feature. Hopefully, this will be released for older versions as well (not everybody will be able to upgrade immediately...).

  1. 20  Rob Ingram  | 7/20/2006 7:32:53 AM

    @12 - Lotusphere session covered Domino Next in some depth (some bloggers covered the content at the time). Come to Advisor Conference in Phoenix in August for a refresh on Domino 7 and Beyond if interested (shameless plug!)

  1. 21  Peter Wilson  | 7/20/2006 7:43:23 AM

    Finnnaalllyyy! Great that it's finally being addressed.

    Pete

  1. 22  Przemek Baczkiewicz  | 7/20/2006 8:33:34 AM

    @11 Is setting event category to "vacation" doesn't work for you?

    Przemek

  1. 23  Markus Koller http://www.namics.com | 7/20/2006 9:29:59 AM

    @3: if a spam filter is deleting the mail before o-o processes it, there's no big trouble. is a response to a spam-mail so valuable? mostly, the reply-to is faked so it never reaches these guys.

  1. 24  Elijah Lapson  | 7/20/2006 9:33:32 AM

    @22 Wow! I learn something new everyday I tell you. Great tip!

    It pays off to read all the comments :)

    Elijah Lapson

  1. 25  Mike http://www.portalpartnership.com | 7/20/2006 9:34:14 AM

    @11 I agree, any calendar form, well Meeting, All Day event and Appointment should have a checkbox to simply "Enable OOO during this <event type>" Wouldn't expect this to apply to reminders (there's no end time).

    However - I think the OOO exceptions tab should have additional options to "Restrict processing to users in my domain AND users in my synchronised contacts lists"

    AND for users that do not sync contacts there should also be the option to:

    "Restrict OOO processing to mails that arrive only in my inbox". That way any mail from spammers delivered to Junk Mail would be ignored by the OOO.

    Hmmm perhaps this should be rewritten as "Prevent OOO from responding to mail in my Junk Mail folder"

    Mike

  1. 26  Andy B http://andy.the-broyles.com | 7/20/2006 12:52:56 PM

    @22 Thanks, didn't know that worked for vacation...but I still think that most all day events could benefit from a quicker way (like that for the vacation category) to engage the OoO

  1. 27  Richard Smith http://www.basic.co.uk | 7/21/2006 1:19:04 PM

    @3. I agree with Curt. I figure Out of Office will confirm to Spammers, that your email exists, which will out-weight the value to legitimate users.....

    I feel a feature request / consideration coming on here... How can we still use the OoO Agent for external users, but not play into the Spammer's hands?

    Maybe i'm being naiive, but is there a way that you can provide an integration option to a central whitelist, or a "query against database / databases" feature where only those people listed in a database(s) will get an out of office reply... many of us have contact databases. We could always dev up the required view format perhaps in our own apps..... that way, people won't have to populate big long lists of personal "whitelist" users. Instead, the server queries against standard, central dbs instead. Oh, and if it's a "server performance" issue, maybe the people that would use this might be happy with the trade off.

    Anyway, thats my 2 pence / 2 cents. I'd be interests in your thoughts.

  1. 28  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 7/24/2006 6:07:13 AM

    @27: well, you could selectively restrict OoO messages so that they're only sent to internal users. You could also create different OoO messages for internal and external users, so that outsiders don't get the same detailed information about your whereabouts that co-workers do. If you were using Exchange, that is.

  1. 29  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 7/24/2006 8:07:26 AM

    @28 Notes OOO allows you to define a generic message for everyeone, a special message to certain people, and set exceptions such as: "Do not reply to internet mail",

    Do not reply to email from these people or groups", "Do not reply to email addressed to these groups", and "Do not reply if the subject line contain these phrases". So once again, no need for Exchange.

  1. 30  Matthias Leisi http://matthias.leisi.net/ | 7/24/2006 12:41:08 PM

    @27-29: All forms of auto-responders for e-mail from outside an organisation will get you into serious trouble over time. It's just not safe any more to blindly respond to whatever came along.

    At the very least, auto-responses to detected spam and to (non-) delivery notifications should be disabled. Further, verifyable faked senders (check SPF and/or DKIM) must be excluded as well.

    The safe approach obviously is not to auto-respond, except if the sender (or the sender's domain) is known (eg through an entry in the address book or a global whitelist).

    Excuses for performance reasons are not acceptable -- "stupid" auto-responders are causing too much harm to innocent bystanders.