In Easy365Manager, the “Automatic replies to external senders” dropdown menu grants control over which senders outside of the organization receive automated responses from a specific mailbox.
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You can quickly locate the setting by opening up properties for a user, selecting the Mailbox tab, and clicking on Delivery Options.
This opens up the following form, where you find the “Automatic replies to external senders” in the Automatic replies section:
In Easy365Manager, the “Automatic replies to external senders” dropdown menu corresponds to the ‘ExternalAudience’ parameter of the Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration PowerShell command.
The dropdown menu has three options: All external senders, Only user’s contacts, and Disabled. These options correspond to the values All, Known, and None, used with the ‘ExternalAudience’ parameter.
The chosen value for the PowerShell command “Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration -ExternalAudience” filters an audience for recipients of automatic email:
Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration -Identity lene.hau@azure.skrubbeltrang.com -ExternalAudience AllExternal
When set to All, the automatic replies are sent to all external senders, including those not in the user’s contact list. If set to Known, replies are limited to the user’s saved contacts. Choosing None turns off automatic replies for external recipients altogether.
Setting the parameter to All ensures that anyone sending an email to the mailbox receives the automated response. It can be helpful for communication during vacations or absences.
The Known option restricts automatic replies to known contacts, reducing unnecessary responses to unsolicited emails and maintaining a more controlled communication.
When set to None, auto-replies are disabled, which can prevent unnecessary responses from being sent, maintaining a professional image and preventing potential spam or misuse of the auto-reply feature.
The “Set-MailboxAutoReplyConfiguration -ExternalAudience” command provides granular control over automatic replies in Exchange environments. The choice of audience helps tailor the automated communication to suit the user’s needs best while avoiding unnecessary or unwanted responses.
