Office 365 - Logon Hours

[Trapper]

I'm fairly certain you can't do this, but I've had an inquiry as to whether we can centrally enforce email logon hours so nothing comes through to a mailbox between say 6pm and 7am.

 

Any ideas?

[Edu-IT]

I'm fairly certain you can't do this, but I've had an inquiry as to whether we can centrally enforce email logon hours so nothing comes through to a mailbox between say 6pm and 7am.

 

Any ideas?

Could you not create a rule to delete the mail?

[jamesbmarshall]

Do you actually want to stop email from being received to the mailbox, or just to stop people from logging in to access it?

 

Stopping mail from actually getting to it outside of working hours seems pretty drastic... what would you want to happen to inbound mail? An auto-response? An NDR? Silence?

[EduTech]

I don't believe you have an option to delay mail between specific times within the mail-flow system (FOPE) and I imagine you might be doing this as you may have people complaining of receiving emails out side of working hours (bizarre). I don't think you will be able to do that.

 

If you want to restrict actual logon hours, then you can do this within active directory which should work.. but you will have errors when an iPhone or some other device tries to retrieve email between these times zones.

 

Regards,

James.

[elsiegee40]

Do you actually want to stop email from being received to the mailbox, or just to stop people from logging in to access it?

 

Stopping mail from actually getting to it outside of working hours seems pretty drastic... what would you want to happen to inbound mail? An auto-response? An NDR? Silence?

 

I agree. The mail has to be delivered.

 

Stopping staff from checking their emails out of hours is surely a matter for the HT to establish good working practice, work-life balance... stopping people from getting their emails out of hours completely is a recipe for disaster.

[Trapper]

This is from the HT!!

[jamesbmarshall]

The best way I can think of to do this is to go down the route of ADFS; then you can use the logon hours in AD to restrict when users can authenticate.

 

I agree with @elsiegee40 though, the better way to handle this would be by encouraging better work/life balance practice rather than trying to architect something complex. Still, if the HT wants a technology solution then ADFS is the best way.

 

Trying to actually stop mail delivery is only going to negatively impact both you, and the people who try to communicate with you, in the long term.

[john]

This is from the HT!!

 

Sounds like a HT I had, we were not allowed to tell staff how to setup mobile devices with the Exchange server as they will work 24x7 and the Unions will not agree or like it.... Needless to say a lot sussed it out or asked questions about server names which we happily answered and pointed them to Google "how to setup Exchange on my *insert popular phone OS* and they usually sussed it out

 

Logon hours will be your friend but suspect the HT will soon get shouted at by staff for them as some staff like to run at 3:30 to pickup offspring and then when they are in bed at say 7pm they do a few hours work then rather than stay a few hours at the end of the day so think carefully about them as it will affect anything that needs them to logon.