This is a somewhat different blog, compared to FourCo’s usual content. But we believe many of you may still find this useful. In the Netherlands, working part-time is common, or some might work part-time with different clients. In those cases, it can be convenient to set up a friendly out-of-office message on the days you don’t work. Having to remind yourself to do this every week is a bit of a hassle, this blog post will help you set up out-of-office replies with Microsoft Power Automate
Creating the workflow
To set up your recurring out-of-office messages follow these steps.
1. Log in to Microsoft Power Auto
Go to https://make.powerautomate.com/ to log into Power Automate. After logging in you should see something similar to this:
2. Create a new flow
Simply click the “Create” button. There you have the option to search all templates. In the searchbox enter the text automatic replies, and press enter.
From the results choose the Setup automatic replies in Office 365 Outlook on a recurring basis
template.
3. Configure the Flow details
When creating the flow, ensure it is connected to the correct Office 365 account and click continue.
First, we enter the recurrence details. Open up the advanced options to have more control over the timing. Also note the preview box at the bottom, that tells you what the current trigger schedule is set to.
In this case, I want the out-of-office reply every Thursday, so I trigger to set it every Thursday at 00:00.
After setting the trigger, input your out-of-office message specifics. I needed to click the ‘x’ to clear the custom value before setting the audience – this could be due to a bug or perhaps a browser issue.
To set the starttime, use the expression utcNow(). This sets it to the current time.
For the end time, I chose the current time plus one day since I’ll be back to work on Friday. Adjust this according to your needs.
Upon completing the above steps, your workflow should look something like this:
All that remains is to click “save”.
Important Note:
If you’re planning an extended leave, remember to pause this workflow. Otherwise, it will overwrite any existing out-of-office messages you’ve set.
