Office 365 Mail Flow rule based on times??

[themightymrp]

As part of our school policy to try and improve work/life balance, I am wanting to append a disclaimer to staff emails if they are sent out of office hours to say something along the lines of:

 

"This email was sent at a date and time that was convenient to the sender. Please do not feel obliged to respond outside of working hours."

 

Any ideas on how to set this up? I can't see any options relating to date or time? I suspect there is a way using regex but I don't understand how they work

 

Cheers

[jimmy_2k]

To be honest most of the schools who want to keep emails under control have setup rules which prevent the sending of emails outside of school hours, but only allow it to certain staff members. I have also worked in a place which only allowed all staff emails to SLT and some HODs.

[Domino]

An onsite powershell script that enables/disables the rule, run as a scheduled task is likely your only bet.

 

I'm doing the same for our onsite rule that does similar

[themightymrp]

That won't work for us, many staff prefer to do work in the evenings or at weekends. We just want to make the point that because one person prefers that, others shouldn't be expected to reply until the working day begins.

 

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@Domino any chance you can share your script method for that?

 

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@Domino any chance you can share your script method for that?

[sat_s]

Why find a solution to a problem that doesn't need fixing?

 

SLT should inform staff that they are not obliged to respond to emails out of hours. If staff respond to emails then that's their issue of not following SLT's instructions

[FishCustard]

I tend to agree with those who say this isn't worth doing. While this is a far, far better solution than holding delivery of mail until the next day or (worse) blocking the sending of mail after hours, it is still mostly attempting to be a technical solution to a policy problem.

 

You could definitely do it with a scheduled powershell script, but I'd recommend against it - have a clearly communicated policy and there'll be no need.

[PotNoodleTech]

Why find a solution to a problem that doesn't need fixing?

 

SLT should inform staff that they are not obliged to respond to emails out of hours. If staff respond to emails then that's their issue of not following SLT's instructions

 

This. You're looking for a technical solution to a non technical problem.

 

If staff don't want to respond to emails outside of school hours then....tell them it's their decision not to check their email outside of school hours. No drama.

 

For the sake of the lord, don't punish those staff who simply want to be flexible and adopt a flexible attitude to a work life balance.

[themightymrp]

I appreciate what you say, but this is the policy that has been agreed upon by SLT and the schools work/life balance committee. The head mentioned that this is what we would be doing in an all staff meeting this morning (we are on a training day).

 

I'd love to say "just don't reply" but there are those people who feel they have to. For whatever reason.

[Domino]

That won't work for us, many staff prefer to do work in the evenings or at weekends. We just want to make the point that because one person prefers that, others shouldn't be expected to reply until the working day begins.

 

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@Domino any chance you can share your script method for that?

 

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@Domino any chance you can share your script method for that?

 

Like I say, it's on-premise for us, so it's hardly taxing

 

Enable-TransportRule “RuleName” -confirm:$false

Disable-TransportRule “RuleName” -confirm:$false

 

I fully agree that it's unnecessary, ours came about as an alternative to flat out denying access to users out of hours.

 

That itself came from C-Level execs misinterpreting French labour laws. It may not be what we want, but when the business are dead-set on wanting it what can you do?

[bossman]

@themightymrp

 

We have appended the following to all the footers in any e-mail sent by staff:

 

"We respect the work-life balance of all our staff. If this email has been sent out of normal working hours there is no expectation for you to provide an immediate response."

 

"Only thing is we use......Google mail!" but i'm sure this is feasible in 0365

 

Its in our school policy which the staff append to but also its technically enforced this way...

 

Our HT did ask if we could stop mail from being delivered after a certain time and also on a weekend, I said we could but there would be a cost factor and I also nearly cracked out laughing when I mentioned to him that the staff would come in to 100s of e-mails on a morning!

 

He agreed that this was just a commonsense approach not a technical one and thus the footer...works very well!

Edited October 11, 2019 by bossman

[themightymrp]

See, I like that and I could implement that easily. But our HT and SLT have decided they want it to only operate outside of working hours and ALSO to have a separate one for mail sent internally and mail sent externally :-/

 

These are the scripts I was given. I should be able to do it with schedule powershell scripts as outlined above, just a PITA

 

• External email – footer:

• SCHOOLNAME respects the privacy and work life balance of all staff. We do not expect our staff to check or to respond to email when they are not at work. Teaching staff will prioritise teaching activities and we cannot guarantee that email will be read the same day it was sent.

 

• Internal email – footer:

• Work-life balance. This email was sent at a date and time that was convenient to the sender. Please do not feel obliged to respond outside of working hours.

[DSapseid]

My head got me to put "If this email is sent before 8:00am, after 5:30pm or at the weekend this is because it fits with my schedule. This does not imply any expectation that you respond outside your working hours." as footer to all emails as from the start of this year.

 

Apparently we have had a few external companies comment on how good it is that we are not expecting people to work outside of 9-5.

[mrstrong]

You could always encourage people to schedule automatic replies

 

 

Maybe even poss to schedule automatically via powershell?

[themightymrp]

We could @mrstrong but this would probably end up in an increase in emails overall when all of the bounce backs happen

[mrstrong]

yes I was being a little faceitious but it is friday after all;)