Hi, first post. We have an Echange 2003 server in an active directory domain. There is a global group 'helpdesk' that has, as it's members, 6 support staff. Mails to helpdesk get sent to all 6 support staff. Any one of those support staff may respond to the message but it's also possible that each member could assume someone else has responded. We now need to discourage users from using that global group and log their support requests in a separate package where the calls can be assigned to a support specialist. Is it possible to have an 'auto responder' on a global group? Is it possible to have an 'out of office' response on a global group? I've been unable to find a way of doing either. Failing that we could set up a user (rather than a group) and have an out of office or auto responder on that account but we would then need to forward the mail to another group set up with the same membership so that the request could be dealt with. This would be a short term fix until the use of 'helpdesk' had been eliminated. Anyone got any ideas? Regards, Norman

Hi Norman, Autoreply from Distribution list is not possible in Exchange 2003 since it doesnt have mailbox. (In Exchange 2007 you can create transport rules to send autoreply from Hub Transport server) You can create a dummy mailbox and create server side auto reply rule and add that mailbox to member of DL, which will send auto-reply to sender. How to create a server-side rule to automatically reply with a specific message in Outlook 2000

Thanks Amit I had seen the KB article before but was unable to get it to work. Have tried your suggestion and created a new user/mailbox called 'autorespond'. The user has been made a member of 'helpdesk' DL and I've created the rule exactly as suggested but mails to 'helpdesk' do not get the auto respond. The mails arrive in the autorespond inbox OK. I must be missing something here. The autorespond mailbox has been set to be hidden from the GAL but I don't think that matters. Is there something I've missed? :-) Regards, Norman

Do you get auto reply if you send a mail individual to dummy mailbox?

No, I have set the rule to trigger to both "sent only to me" and to "sent to user or group - helpdesk". I have tried both options and sent to both "autorespond" and "helpdesk" but neither triggered the rule.

Hello Norman, Actually you can set public folder also to give auto reply, I did a quick search and found a procedure. Check if it helps. Groups - Automatic Replies from the Group Besides this, auto reply from mailbox, try by creatinga template for autoreply and set rule. Automatically reply to messages

Thanks again Amit.I'm working from home at the moment. Will be back in the office next week (Wednesday). I'll try it out then and let you know.Regards,Norman

Thanks Amit That's a nice solution.