Hi guys, Odd one this, hopefully someone can confirm that this is by design and why that is the case. We work in a large and complex environment and many of our 50 000 mailboxes have Exchange system forwards in place. These forwards are created by scripts we developed, and it involves the creation of a distribution list which can have 1 or more email addresses in it i.e. the system forward is set to forward to a distribution list. For email this works fine, no real problems. HOWEVER, one thing it doesn't forward on is "out of office" responses. i.e I have a forward in place from mailbox A to mailbox B. I send an email from mailbox A to "John Smith" and he is out of the office. The pout of office goes back to my mailbox A account, but does NOT forward onto the mailbox B account. CAVEAT: This DOES work if the forward that was in place was set directly to a single user. So, the question I have is, why does a Distribution list interfere with the delivery of an Out Of Office email? Any help? Tom

If I understand you correctly, the answer is that this is by design. If person A sends a message to DL B, then the OOF will only get sent from individual members back to person A. The OOF will not get sent to the entire DL. "Millardus" wrote in message news:8652e8da-bd4e-4d28-867e-2262da4f5852... Hi guys, Odd one this, hopefully someone can confirm that this is by design and why that is the case. We work in a large and complex environment and many of our 50 000 mailboxes have Exchange system forwards in place. These forwards are created by scripts we developed, and it involves the creation of a distribution list which can have 1 or more email addresses in it i.e. the system forward is set to forward to a distribution list. For email this works fine, no real problems. HOWEVER, one thing it doesn't forward on is "out of office" responses. i.e I have a forward in place from mailbox A to mailbox B. I send an email from mailbox A to "John Smith" and he is out of the office. The pout of office goes back to my mailbox A account, but does NOT forward onto the mailbox B account. CAVEAT: This DOES work if the forward that was in place was set directly to a single user. So, the question I have is, why does a Distribution list interfere with the delivery of an Out Of Office email? Any help? Tom Mark Arnold, Exchange MVP.

Hey Mark, you've almost got it (Though I'm not sure if the slight confusion will affect the answer). Person A sends an Email directly to person B (No DL). Person B responds with an Out of Office. The out of office is going back to person A and staying in that mailbox, it is not forwarding to the DL which Person A has setup (i.e. Person A has a default mailbox forward setup to forward emails to a DL). If this answer is still that this is By Design, then do you (Or anyone) have an idea why? (I am going to be asked for the reason anyway - I work for Academic institution, just saying "that's how it is" doesn't work for them ;-) ) As I mentioned, normal emails that are forwarded by person A's mailbox deliver fine to the DL recipients (Soo far only OOO messages dont, and I suspect NDR's). Tom

That sounds about right. Perhaps look at the business requirements here. Ask why the messages bouncing back to 'A' need to go out to a DL. What is the business requirement? There's probably a simpler and certainly far more robust way of doing this. "Millardus" wrote in message news:ea3741e4-82da-443e-994c-44351faf3758... Hey Mark, you've almost got it (Though I'm not sure if the slight confusion will affect the answer). Person A sends an Email directly to person B (No DL). Person B responds with an Out of Office. The out of office is going back to person A and staying in that mailbox, it is not forwarding to the DL which Person A has setup (i.e. Person A has a default mailbox forward setup to forward emails to a DL). If this answer is still that this is By Design, then do you (Or anyone) have an idea why? (I am going to be asked for the reason anyway - I work for Academic institution, just saying "that's how it is" doesn't work for them ;-) ) As I mentioned, normal emails that are forwarded by person A's mailbox deliver fine to the DL recipients (Soo far only OOO messages dont, and I suspect NDR's). Tom Mark Arnold, Exchange MVP.

Hi Millardus, It is by design, Exchange server does not send NDRs, read receipts, delivery receipts, or out-of-office messages to members of distribution groups. Please refer to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/839949/en-us Regards! gavin