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I used the “time off” feature when I took 2 days off in order to enable the auto-responder. There were several conversations assigned to me in a shared channel for which we received an inbound message while I was out of office. When that happened, I was unassigned from the conversations. I would like the conversations to remain assigned to me, so that the inbound responses would be waiting in my inbox upon my return. As it was, I missed them at first. 

How can I avoid being unassigned on conversations like this? I can imagine two possibilities:

  1. A way to enable the auto-responder without marking myself “out of office” (maybe I can do this with a rule? seems like a hack)
  2. Changing some settings so that inbound messages do not auto-unassign me. 

Hello Katriel,

Tia from Front’s Support Team here to help!

When you use the time off feature and are set to out of office, any new inbound message to a conversation assigned to you in a shared inbox will cause that conversation to be unassigned so someone else can follow up.

If you want to send an auto-reply but also keep conversations assigned to you while you are away, you can:

  • Set your status to Busy: With the busy status, new conversations won't be auto-assigned to you, but any conversations already assigned to you will stay assigned, even if new inbound messages arrive. This way, those conversations will be waiting in your inbox when you return.
  • Create an Auto-Reply Rule: Set up a rule that automatically sends an auto-reply message to new incoming conversations or messages. 

Additionally, we have an open feature request for more flexible functionality when out of office here: https://front.ideas.aha.io/ideas/PRD-I-2068. I encourage you to add a vote!  

Let me know if you have any other questions. 

Thanks, 

Tia

Hi ​@tiamarie_dennington,

Thanks so much for these helpful pointers. I think an auto-reply rule is a good solution. However, one inconvenience of the rule options is that I can specify a date range and I can specify a time range, but I cannot specify for the rule to start at a certain time on a certain date. Ideally there would be a “Datetime is between” option.

Thanks,

Katriel 

Hello Katriel,

You're welcome! I am glad to help 🙂. 

You are correct; at present, there is no functionality to set a "date between" condition on the auto-reply rule. However, you can create a rule similar to the one in the screenshot below. This will allow you to specify particular days of the week on which the rule should be applied. It is important to activate this rule immediately before you go out of office to ensure it operates only on the specific dates during your absence.

 

If you have any additional questions or assistance configuring this rule to meet your needs, feel free to email us at Support@Frontapp.com. We are here to help!

 

Thanks, 

Tia

Actually the auto-reply rule didn’t work. It doesn’t trigger when the conversation is in a shared inbox. 

Hi Katriel,

 

For further investigation, we will reach out you!

 

Thanks, 

Tia

Hi,

By default conversations get unassigned when you’re marked Out of Office. As a workaround I avoid setting OOO and instead use an auto-reply  +tag like “OOO- Follow” up to track items. You can also set up a rule to reassign message back to yourself if needed

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