Can I have a message resend itself from the recipient's mailbox?

  • Thread starter Thread starter plh
  • Start date Start date
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plh

Hello Outlook Gurus:
As part of a project involving the tracking of engineering hours, the following
question came up:
Suppose an email message to John originates in MS Access using the SendMail
method assigning him responsibility for a given task, but he is out sick. Can
the message contain some sort of timer that automatically notifies Mary that he
has not yet opened it in X hours, allowing her to assign the task to someone
else?
Thank You,
-plh
 
There's nothing you can do about this unless you are using Microsoft
Exchange. If you are, this has to be a server-side solution that uses custom
logic to monitor changes to items in an Mailbox or Public Folder. However,
even that won't allow you to determine that a user has opened the message.
The best server-side solution would be a service that monitors states and
deadlines and send notifications when appropriate.

However, there's lots you can do from an Outlook programming perspective if
you need to handle what happens when a user opens a particular message
(either through custom forms, VBA or a COM Add-In).
 
Hi. I would just like to say the request for a solution to this is really a
very good request. I believe there is a place at Microsoft where he could
submit his request for later versions of Exchange and Outlook.

That said I think there is a way to set Outlook to request a recipient when
they open the e-mail if it can send a msg back to the sender lettting them
know the e-mail has been opened. I believe in a closed Network you
shouldn't really have security issues. Then there would be a "timer" on the
sending client say, that looks for the retrun-receipt e-mail and if not
received in say 24 hours it notifies the sender time to send the project off
to someone else. But then again the client can have an auto-responder which
notifies a sender the recipient is out and won't be back until further
notice.

But I really like this request. Very nice.
 
Read receipts can approximate this functionality, but they are easily
declined. "Hard-coding" read detection is possible and if enough people
scream for this MS may look at it seriously - but I can see this being
problematic to implement.

Besides, this is really trying to address an HR issue. If people aren't
doing their work or checking their e-mail, why keep throwing technology at it?

--
Eric Legault (Outlook MVP, MCDBA, MCTS: Messaging & Collaboration)
Try Picture Attachments Wizard for Outlook:
http://www.collaborativeinnovations.ca
Blog: http://blogs.officezealot.com/legault/
 
Thanks for all the information. You are right about the HR aspect. If someone is
on vacation they should have turned on the out-of-office tool. If they are out
on short notice the supervisor should know about it anyway because they should
have called it. I'm setting up the DB so that a supervisor can easily get a list
of a report's current projects, so with all that in mind, a group of
professionals should be able to pull it off.
Thanx,
-plh

Read receipts can approximate this functionality, but they are easily
declined. "Hard-coding" read detection is possible and if enough people
scream for this MS may look at it seriously - but I can see this being
problematic to implement.

Besides, this is really trying to address an HR issue. If people aren't
doing their work or checking their e-mail, why keep throwing technology at it?

--
Eric Legault (Outlook MVP, MCDBA, MCTS: Messaging & Collaboration)
Try Picture Attachments Wizard for Outlook:
http://www.collaborativeinnovations.ca
Blog: http://blogs.officezealot.com/legault/
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