Monash Email Vacation Messages

If you are a staff member going on leave, it is recommended that you set up a vacation message to inform anyone that emails you that you are away from work.

It is possible to set up your Mail account to automatically reply to emails sent to your address while you are on leave. The automatic reply message can display information like any normal email. Generally these include alternative contact details for important matters and your return to work date.

Instructions to set up your Vacation Message

You can set your vacation message from the MDS Enduser Tool. This link is also available from the Options tab in WebMail. You will need to login to the MDS Enduser Tool with your AuthCate user name and password. Once you are logged in, click on Vacation message under the Mail account heading to the left.

To set up your vacation message:

The Vacation Subject is the subject line of your vacation reply.

The Vacation Message is the body (content) of the email that is sent. This should be an appropriate message containing such information as how long you will be gone and whom to contact for urgent communications.

The Vacation Message Timeout is the time between sending repeated vacation replies to the same address. The default is 7 days if this field is left blank. This means that, if someone emails you while you are away, the first time they will receive the vacation message. However, if they keep emailing you they will not receive another vacation message for 7 days, and so-on.

Vacation Message Status controls when your vacation reply is active. You can select Enabled to enable it now, and you will need to manually disable it when you want it to stop. Or, you can select Use Vacation Start/End Date Range to have your vacation message automatically become activated and deactivated at the specified dates.

The Vacation Start Date and Vacation End Date are the dates your vacation message will automatically activate and de-activate on if you have chosen this option.

Once you are happy with your settings, click Submit Changes. The changes will usually take effect within 15 minutes. If you change your mind, you can click Reset to reset the form to your current settings.