Auto-Responder seems to trigger for every email that hits a user's mailbox. This creates an unnecessary -- and often unwanted -- amount of auto-response traffic. Although v2.0 now has the "once per day", and this is an improvement, it still does not fully address the problem.
The most common use of Auto-Responder within our Enterprise is for "Out of Office" type of messages. With that in mind...
PROBLEM
Auto-Responder cannot be configured by the user for which incomming (i.e. TO: address) it will respond. This creates unnecessary -- and again, often unwanted -- responses. For example:
Distribution Groups: An email received because the user is a member of a Distribution Group triggers an auto-response. This is unnecessary since other group members will receive the email and can appropriately respond to the sender in the absence of one of the members.
SPAM: Often SPAM does NOT have a user's email address in the TO: header. It either has some bogus address, or may contain a common group address such as "sales" or "support". If the TO: address is some bogus address (eg. such as the address of the sender), it should not trigger an auto-response. Additionally, if it has a valid address, but one that is a distribution group, it should not trigger an auto-response (as described above).
SOLUTION
The proposed solution is quite simple in concept: Provide a Toggle option for the user when they setup their Auto-Response, such as:
Code: Select all
[ ] Only send response to email addressed directly to me
This addresses both the issue of email received TO a Distribution Group or TO some bogus address (non-user address).
When this option is turned OFF, Auto-Responder will operate just as it does now, therefore it will not effect or "break" any existing organization's implementation or use of Auto-Responders outside the scope of "Out of Office" types of functions.