UNC-CH Email Vacation Service

Introduction

ITS provides an e-mail vacation service that automatically responds to senders of your incoming e-mail messages with a message notifying them that you are away and/or unable to read your e-mail. This service is only provided for the campus centralized e-mail service, @email.unc.edu accounts.

Setting It Up

To set up the vacation service, go to the Onyen Services page and click on the Set Vacation Message button. After you log in to the vacation service setup page, the following will be available:

  • A list of all your email aliases,
  • A pull-down list of autoresponse targets,
  • Two dates,
  • A pull-down list of intervals to indicate how often an autoresponse is sent to each person who sends you email,
  • An email message Subject: line,
  • The body of an email message,
  • A pull-down menu of sample messages,
  • Aa set of buttons which allow you to save the configuration and turn on vacation, turn off vacation, or cancel the page altogether.

Aliases

A list of aliases the central email system handles for your @email.unc.edu is displayed. about which would result in email being sent addressed to one or more of your aliases, deselect those aliases.

Send Responses To

The pull-down list labeled "Send responses to" lets you determine to whom autoresponses are sent. to other people.

Dates and Intervals

The two dates determine when the service is to start and stop. Email arriving before the start date never generates an autoresponse. Email arriving between (and including) the start and stop dates will generate an autoresponse to messages coming to the address that you've specified. The first message to arrive after the stop date turns off your vacation configuration.

The interval selected in the pull-down below the dates determines how often an autoresponse should be sent nt will be sent another autoresponse should they send you more email.

Subject and Body

The text box labeled "Subject" contains the text to use as the subject line of your autoresponse message. message that triggered the autoresponse. So you might have a message body that contains:

I am on vacation until July 22. Your mail regarding "$SUBJECT" will be read when I return. If you have something urgent, please contact Joe Jones (jones@fB0).

--John

Keep in mind that anybody in the world can get a copy of your autoresponse message would be especially bad:

I am on vacation until July 22. In the mean time, I hope nobody finds the key to my 123 the blue box in the attic is intact when I return.

Several sample generic messages are available from the pull-down list. These are considered pretty safe messages.

How It Works

Understanding how the autoresponder works may help explain any surprising from the incoming message header, acts accordingly.

Only messages that list one of your selected aliases in either the "To:" line else would get.

See Also

You can forward your email to another account by clicking the Forward your Email button on the Onyen Services page. Additional information on the email forwarding service is available in the How can I forward my UNC Email? document.


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