Setting an “Away” Auto-Reply Message in WebMail

You can set a filter on your e-mail account that will automatically reply to incoming messages while you are away from the office.

To do this yourself, you need to log into your account using the Psy2 WebMail interface.

  1. Enter your username and password
    (the same ones as in your e-mail client application)

  2. Once you have logged in, click on the "Options" icon link.

  3. Click on the "Personal Information" section, and fill in your full name, e-mail address and "reply to" e-mail adress. Click the "Submit" button to save the changes.

  4. In the menu at the top of the page, click the "Filters" link. This should take you to the "Server Side Mail Filtering" page.
Screenshot of Webmail login
  1. Click on "Add a new rule" This will bring up a page titled "Server-Side Mail Filtering - Create New Mail Filtering Rule."

  2. In the first section, "Condition," there is a drop-down box for "And/Or" conditions. You are only setting one condition, so it doesn't matter whether this box is set to filter on all conditions or just any condition.

  3. Click the "Header" drop-down menu on the first bullet point, and set it to "All" to filter all incoming messages.

  4. Click the "Less" button twice to remove the other conditions (this is not strictly necessary, but it makes things simpler).

  5. In the second section ("Action"), click the "Vacation" selection button (the 6th button along the left edge of the page) to make your auto-reply active.

  6. Add your e-mail address in the text box labeled "Addresses: Only reply if sent to these addresses"
    Important: previous instructions recommended leaving this field empty - there MUST be at least one address in this box for your autoreply to work.

  7. Enter the number of days to wait before resending the "away" message. Senders will not receive your "away" message more than once in this period. Enter "7" if you don't have a preference, but do not leave it blank.
  1. Type your away message in the box labeled "Use the following message". If you created a signature in step 3, it will be added following this text.

  2. In the "Additional Actions" section, you can choose to skip any other filtering rules after the auto-reply is sent.

    You can also choose whether you want to be notified when the auto-reply is sent out.

  3. Click the button to "Add New Rule," to complete the process, or "Cancel" to cancel the rule.

  4. You should see the vacation message on the "Current Mail Filtering Rules" page, which will also allows you to edit, duplicate, or delete any rule by clicking one of the icons under "Options" on the right-hand side of the page.

  5. Your vacation message will now be sent as an auto-reply until you log into Webmail again and delete the filtering rule.
 Screenshot of Save Changes page
When you want to stop the vacation message from being sent, return to the "Filters" section under "Options", mark the check box next to the vacation message filter, and click the "Disable" or "Delete" button.

Make sure to save the changes when you are finished.

psytech@psy.ucsd.edu
updated (taw) March 20, 2007 10:34 AM