Stopping Delivery of emails out of school hours

[mmi]

I have been asked to look into how to stop delivery of email out of school hours to all staff. We have on site Exchange 2010 and as far as i know there is nothing that can do this a part from either shutting down the server or removing the network cable.

 

Does anyone have any ideas or know if it is even possible using software or by other means.

[elsiegee40]

Actually being able to do this is one thing.

 

The risks with doing so are quite another.

 

If you make the service unavailable at certain times, staff will resort to using their own private emails... regardless of school policy, data protection and anything else. And that is a BIG risk to the school. Staff will start a conversation in private emails and gradually the private email will take over from the school one, unmonitored, unchecked and potentially full of sensitive information that shouldn't leave the school systems.

 

You have a much bigger risk to the school on your hands from use of personal emails than from staff ignoring an SLT instruction to only use school email in 'office hours' but leaving the service available.

Edited January 12, 2017 by elsiegee40

[Andrew_C]

I don't see that the school are trying to prevent private use of school email, but (as the French are doing) stopping staff working when they should be resting. But the rest of the ppint is valid, at least until the culture has changed.

[elsiegee40]

I don't see that the school are trying to prevent private use of school email, but (as the French are doing) stopping staff working when they should be resting. But the rest of the ppint is valid, at least until the culture has changed.

 

I didn't say they were using school email for private purposes.

 

I said that staff prevented from using school email for school business out of hours will turn to their private email, or worse still facebook messenger, instead.

 

You're right that it would take a huge shift in culture and the risks to the school while that culture change happens are rather large.

[Andrew_C]

Ok, reread, and can now see it that way.

[Mr_Jiminy]

OP what are they trying to gain from this? Edited January 12, 2017 by Mr_Jiminy

[MatthewL]

I suspect home/work life balance, becoming a common topic in places and VW in Germany have done it.

[ellsandell]

I think this is more of a management/HR issue rather than a technical issue?

[3s-gtech]

A child protection email that needs to be sent out of hours (because convenience and CP don't tend to intertwine) and can't be, would mean necks on blocks. Do not do this.

 

If email is your primary communication method (who has the mobile number of their CP officer?) then you need to be able to inform them day or night. It's their job/responsibility to pick it up of course.

[6Foot2]

Before Christmas, our Head asked me to find out if it would be possible to have a discouraging message pop up if a member of staff began composing an E-Mail after 7:00 pm during the week or at any time during the weekend (Office365)

 

I have made no progress with this and I plan to quietly forget about it. Hopefully, he (The Head) will do the same.

[mullet_man]

Is the French law the right to ignore emails, or is access after work hours going to be blocked?

[elsiegee40]

Is the French law the right to ignore emails, or is access after work hours going to be blocked?

 

The French law has been watered down a lot from the original proposal. Employees "now have the “right to disconnect” from their jobs once they leave the office. "

 

"The law does not ban out-of-hours emails altogether, and its vague language has left some wondering whether it will do much to change an increasingly plugged-in culture."

 

"Companies with more than 50 employees will have to negotiate with unions over how to limit digital intrusions into their private lives."

 

France’s ‘right to disconnect’ is a nice idea, but it’s also pretty vague - The Verge

[Katy]

Our SLT approached me with the same idea a while ago, luckily they soon changed their minds. The only way I could see to do it would be to disable the account, which also locks them out of Remote Desktop, at 5pm then re-enable it at 8am the next day (or whatever times they wanted) which is easily achievable with a couple of scheduled scripts.

 

Main downside to this is that I think Office365 bounces mail sent to a disabled account, so they'd not receive their 5pm-8am mail at all (rather than it be sat waiting for them the next day).

 

Also a one-size-fits-all policy like this doesn't take into account the different ways that different people work, some stay on site late to work, others go home as soon as they can and catch up there via email and remote access. I can see where they are coming from with the whole work/life balance thing but there isn't really a feasible technical solution, it's more a work culture issue where they just need to make it clear that staff are not expected to be checking emails out of hours.

 

We also have a message on the website along the contact section stating that staff will only deal with school issues during school hours.

[ITGURU]

With on-site exchange you can set mailflow rules to start and stop at specific times, but not sure that you can set it for daily, weekly etc.

However, why you would want to implement this seems silly.

 

Staff may need to send out urgent/important messages and its up to staff if they access out of school hours. It's a choice, not a requirement.

 

Even as IT staff when we are on leave, staff still email us expecting help. I couldn't leave it for 2 weeks before replying!

[TechMonkey]

Even as IT staff when we are on leave, staff still email us expecting help. I couldn't leave it for 2 weeks before replying!

 

I would disagree with that entirely. If I am on leave, I am away. I may check everything is OK if I choose and I have let my boss and my 2ic have my personal number, in case of real emergency, but I am not contactable by normal staff. If the school can't manage without me then that is an issue they need to sort, not me give up my holiday. If we are expected to be effectively contactable 24 hours then when I finally get some down time I am taking it. If the school can't manage does that mean I can't leave the area, the county, the country on holiday? Very dangerous mindset.

[ITGURU]

I would disagree with that entirely. If I am on leave, I am away. I may check everything is OK if I choose and I have let my boss and my 2ic have my personal number, in case of real emergency, but I am not contactable by normal staff. If the school can't manage without me then that is an issue they need to sort, not me give up my holiday. If we are expected to be effectively contactable 24 hours then when I finally get some down time I am taking it. If the school can't manage does that mean I can't leave the area, the county, the country on holiday? Very dangerous mindset.

 

If there are issues that occur and I get notifications of any issues it's part of the job to sort it asap. Users rely on systems and they need to be up and running. Most can be done remotely anyway unless a physical failure. If your off for 2 weeks system went down during exam results would you just leave it then until you returned then??!

[ITGURU]

If there are issues that occur and I get notifications of any issues it's part of the job to sort it asap. Users rely on systems and they need to be up and running. Most can be done remotely anyway unless a physical failure. If your off for 2 weeks system went down during exam results would you just leave it then until you returned then??!

 

If something isn't working I can't just leave it. If there's a fault it's to be fixed not just left.. it's my job to have a realiable system which is always available. Obviously if I'm out the county or country I would say I'll look at it on my return but otherwise I would go in to fix it or just remote in to resolve.

[elsiegee40]

If there are issues that occur and I get notifications of any issues it's part of the job to sort it asap. Users rely on systems and they need to be up and running. Most can be done remotely anyway unless a physical failure. If your off for 2 weeks system went down during exam results would you just leave it then until you returned then??!

 

And everyone, even you, is entitled to holiday (and time off sick) A holiday isn't a holiday if you're working.

 

I have been that lone tech and I do understand the problem of there being nobody else on the payroll who could possibly fix something. That didn't stop me going on holiday and sometimes that was to places where I could not be contacted. My holidays were always in the school diary and it always said if I was out of the country or away from home so that everyone knew.

 

Your employer has to put systems in place to cover your absence. Otherwise that exams system failure will be when you're "under a bus" and unable to respond. You owe to them to make sure there's a backstop in place.

 

EDIT

 

Sorry OP - this is off topic from your main question, but it does illustrate why taking down the email out of hours doesn't work. Will they also shut down emails when staff are on holiday or off sick? It would be inconsistent not to do so.

Edited January 12, 2017 by elsiegee40

[ITGURU]

And everyone, even you, is entitled to holiday (and time off sick) A holiday isn't a holiday if you're working.

 

I have been that lone tech and I do understand the problem of there being nobody else on the payroll who could possibly fix something. That didn't stop me going on holiday and sometimes that was to places where I could not be contacted. My holidays were always in the school diary and it always said if I was out of the country or away from home so that everyone knew.

 

Your employer has to put systems in place to cover your absence. Otherwise that exams system failure will be when you're "under a bus" and unable to respond. You owe to them to make sure there's a backstop in place.

 

EDIT

 

Sorry OP - this is off topic from your main question, but it does illustrate why taking down the email out of hours doesn't work. Will they also shut down emails when staff are on holiday or off sick? It would be inconsistent not to do so.

 

Yes there are procedures in place and luckily in 13 years I've had 3 sick days offwork!

[BKGarry]

It does seem you could probably create a transport rule to delay delivery and use 2 powershell scripts with the windows task scheduler to achieve it.

 

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/exchange/en-US/4c8bfedb-952e-4580-a40e-6d371dd6013f/outlookexchange2007-mailbox-rule-run-during-time-frame

 

I would be hesitant to do it, for a few reasons mentioned above

[mmi]

Thank you all for your replies. All the issues that have been brought up are well founded however in this case it is the staff who have asked for this. They have complained that they are getting a lot of emails from students and or parents out of hours and they feel compelled to reply immediately.

 

Don't get me wrong i think this idea is wrong especially as we are a boarding/international school but the decision is not for me to make, i can only warn of the disadvantages of removing such an important and primary source of communication.

 

Of course the easy solution is for SMT to give staff approval to not reply to emails until next working day, however in order to force the change in culture and to get teachers used to not having to reply immediately a technical global solution has been requested.

 

We want to trial it for 2/3 weeks and see what reaction/feedback we get. We have already put a short notice in the email disclaimer of the hours that emails will delivered.

 

For the moment i am going to have to just unplug the network cable from the email server as they want to start today so that no emails are delivered over the weekend. I was hoping there would be a software scheduling solution but i haven't found one yet. I will read up on creating a transport rule, however i am hoping sanity will prevail after the weekend.

[ITGURU]

Thank you all for your replies. All the issues that have been brought up are well founded however in this case it is the staff who have asked for this. They have complained that they are getting a lot of emails from students and or parents out of hours and they feel compelled to reply immediately.

 

Don't get me wrong i think this idea is wrong especially as we are a boarding/international school but the decision is not for me to make, i can only warn of the disadvantages of removing such an important and primary source of communication.

 

Of course the easy solution is for SMT to give staff approval to not reply to emails until next working day, however in order to force the change in culture and to get teachers used to not having to reply immediately a technical global solution has been requested.

 

We want to trial it for 2/3 weeks and see what reaction/feedback we get. We have already put a short notice in the email disclaimer of the hours that emails will delivered.

 

For the moment i am going to have to just unplug the network cable from the email server as they want to start today so that no emails are delivered over the weekend. I was hoping there would be a software scheduling solution but i haven't found one yet. I will read up on creating a transport rule, however i am hoping sanity will prevail after the weekend.

 

If your just pulling the network cable - perhaps a safer option is to stop the transport service or mailbox store? I'd never just pull the network cable. At least if it's still connected to the network the server will still be able to update with the domain etc.

[3s-gtech]

If your server is on site, and most off-site email access is web-based (rather than using synced mail apps on phones etc) you should be able to modify the login page of the webmail client so that they can't login (or it is a protracted process). We can certainly do this with on-site Exchange, as the OWA login screen is easy to redirect. This won't stop emails being delivered to synced clients - you may have to turn off the sync connector with Powershell or similar (for Exchange) but this shouldn't stop overall mail flow.

[strawberry]

Could you just disable pop, imap and the webserver so they cannot gain access to email?

[Gurtlush]

Having quickly read the comments. Would the easiest solution be to just schedule a stop and start of the Microsoft Exchange Transport Service (that would stop all receive and send functionality but still allow people to read existing emails). You could do a schedule for Monday to Friday and a different one for the weekend. Of course you would to test this to make sure that any external email doesn't bounce back to sender (but that depends on how your routing works?) and if you have some sort of SMTP Relay in place. If you are going to unplug the server anyway you may get bounce backs.