Hi,we have disabled (not checked) "Allow Automatic Replies" within the "Default" recipient domain(running Exchange 2007) so thatfor all users auto replies to external domainsarenot possible.Now - customer would like to enable auto replies (Outlook rules running on the server) for just a bundle (limited amount)of users/mailboxes.Is there a way to accomplish that ? F.i. by enabling "allow automatic replies" for all and configuring transport rules for filtering auto reply messages based on sender or group membership or text? (Silently drop auto replies for all users except the users permitted to do auto replies)Is there are way to handle system generated messages by transport rules (server side rule generated messageor OoO message)?

Yes, the example you said will work. I tested in the lab (Exchange 2007 SP1). We can enable the "Allow Automatic Replies" option and use transport rule to filter the auto reply message by using server rules or OOF in the outlook

Could you provide an example transport rule for filtering auto reply messages, please.

If users want to use the server reply rule in the Rules & Alerts dialog box or the Rules button in the Out Of Office Assistants dialog box, then we need the following transport rule: Conditions Sent to users Outside the organization When the Subject field or the body of the message contains Text Actions: Silent drop the message Exceptions: Except when the message is from member of distribution group Notes: The distribution group needs to be Distribution type

Hi,the above transport rule does not what I want to do as there is no filter that the message is an auto reply message. The suggested transport rule would also eliminate sending normal emails from users not being a member of the distribution group.If I define some specific text within the "When the Subject field or the body of the message contains Text" filter - f.i. with text I know is used in the auto reply message, then only those messages are using theis transport rule. If a user does define a different text within his/her auto reply message, than that message would pass all transport rules and does get delivered.

I understand your concern. After spent more time to test, I found theres only one difference between normal mail and auto reply, which is the X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthMechanism header. Based on my local test, the value is always "03" if the message is sent by server like server reply rule Ill try to find the definition for that value, and post at here if theres any update

Great - at least it did work doing short testing, but as I do not know what value 0x03 does mean or when it is used by the system in detail, a few additional questions came up:1) difference in outlook rules running server side - compared to client side => I assume that client side rules would not be affacted by the transport rule blocking messages with header X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthMechanism value 0x03. (which again should be blocked accept a few defined users)2) what about NDR's the server might send to the external smtp gateway or server, f.i. mailbox limit reached, unknown user, and so on => will they also contain X-MS-Exchange-Organization-AuthMechanism value 0x03 and therefor do get dropped ? (which I do not want to happen)=Y could ba resolved by adding postmaster address as allowed ??3) possible other issues I can't think of at the moment ?So - still a very interested topic and I will try testing next time when I 'm at the customer site

Did you guys get much further with this? I am very interested to know if a Transport rule would allow central management of auto-replies that are destined for External Recipients. I too am being asked to "Allow Automatuic replies" to remote domains, but am concerned about possible mail loops for instance. Tom