We are using Office 365 and have noticed the following unexpected behaviour when using Outlook 2013 (see example below).   Our concern is the reply email from Employee 2 to Employee 1 & 3 could of held sensitive or embarrassing information about Employee 4 and Employee 2 wouldnt have known Employee 4 had access to their response.

The example:

Employee 1 receives an external application for a job by email

Employee 1 forwards Employee 2 & 3 the email. 

Employee 1 then realises that Employee 4 also needs to see that application so forwards Employee 4 the email.   

Employee 2 reads the application, using the reply button responds to Employee 1 and manually adds Employee 3 to the response.  

Employee 4 sends a reply to just Employee 1 and is told You are not responding to the latest message in this conversation.  Click here to open latest response

By clicking the link Employee 4 is able to see and reply to Employee 2s email although he wasn't on the recipient list.

Could you please confirm this behaviour within Outlook is working as expected?

Hi,

This is not the expected behavior of Outlook. In order to fix the issue more efficiently, I'd like to collect following information:

Does Employee 4 have access to Employee 1's mailbox?

When we click the "You are not responding to the latest message in this conversation. Click here to open it" from InfoBar, it should open the latest message in the conversation. Does it open the latest message in Employee 4's Outlook?

When forwarding email to Employee 4, did Employee 1 forward the original job application email or the email that had been forwarded to Employee 2 & 3 in Sent Items folder?

Can you reproduce this issue with 4 random users?

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support

Steve,

Thanks for the swift response, please see answers to your questions below..

Does Employee 4 have access to Employee 1's mailbox? - Yes

When we click the "You are not responding to the latest message in this conversation. Click here to open it" from InfoBar, it should open the latest message in the conversation. Does it open the latest message in Employee 4's Outlook? - it opens the email from Employee 2.

When forwarding email to Employee 4, did Employee 1 forward the original job application email or the email that had been forwarded to Employee 2 & 3 in Sent Items folder? - The original email

Can you reproduce this issue with 4 random users? - Yes, should be today, will post result later.

Regards

Jason

Steve,

Using the same sequence on 4 different people without permissions to see others mailboxes, the test came out normal.  Employee 4 didn't receive the warning about not being the latest version of the email, and was unable to see the reply from Employee 2.

Regards

Jason

Thank you for the update, Jason. I think we have found the root cause. Does Employee 4 have Employee 1's mailbox opened in his Outlook? If so, how was the mailbox been added? Which permission level does Employee 4 have over Employee 1's mailbox? Please try the following steps to see the result:

1. Make sure "Download shared folders" option is not enabled under Account Settings > More Settings > Advanced tab for Employee 4.

2. Give lower permission on Employee 1's mailbox and then check if this issue persists.

Regards,

Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support