Outlook OOF rule forward dont work as expected

Bash 156 Reputation points
2020-08-31T21:38:00.227+00:00

Hello,
I am member of distribution group (testgroup@keyman .com), my email adress is personA@keyman .com

Im setting OOF rule, which will forward all messages to personB@keyman .com

When people (inside organization) send email to testgroup@keyman .com, the message will appear only in my mailbox personA@keyman .com (OOF rule doesnt work at all, no mailboxrule event in messagetrackinglog appear).

When people send email to personA@keyman .com, message will appear in personB@keyman .com, but also in my PersonA@keyman .com. I expected the rule will forward message to personB@keyman .com and dont copy message to my mailbox as well.

Rule description: only Forward is checked, other fields are empty.
Server: Exchange 2016 CU17, mailboxes are on-prem. Hybrid configuration deployed.
Is this normal behavior?

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Outlook: A family of Microsoft email and calendar products.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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Exchange Server Management
Exchange Server: A family of Microsoft client/server messaging and collaboration software.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
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  1. Bash 156 Reputation points
    2020-09-01T07:54:36.997+00:00

    Hi,
    ok.. this is normal behavior, but there is no need teach users to use inbox rules instead of OOF rules.

    According to documentation, there is switch -SendOofMessageToOriginatorEnabled

    The SendOofMessageToOriginatorEnabled parameter specifies how to handle out of office (OOF) messages for members of the group. Valid values are:
    $true: When messages are sent to the group, OOF messages for any of the group members are sent to the message sender.
    $false: When messages are sent to the group, OOF messages for any of the group members aren't sent to the message sender. This is the default value.

    I changed it to $true, and OOF forwarding rule started to work.

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  1. Lucas Liu-MSFT 6,161 Reputation points
    2020-09-01T06:14:07.083+00:00

    Hi BashCZ,
    Thank you for sharing your solution, which will help more users who have the same problem.
    According to the test results in the lab, we could run the following command line to make when messages are sent to the group, OOF messages for any of the group members are sent to the message sender. 

    Set-DistributionGroup -Identity <> -SendOofMessageToOriginatorEnabled $true

    For more information: Set-DistributionGroup

    We also could create a inbox rule to forward all message received by personA@keyman .com to personB@keyman .com, you could following the steps to create a inbox rule in personA's Outlook.

    1. Open the Outlook -> Click the File -> Click the Manage Rules & Alerts.
    2. Click the New Rule…, select the “Apply rule on messages I receive”.
    3. Directly click the “Next” in Select condition(s) page and click “Yes” in warning popup.
      21824-33333.png
    4. Select the “Forward it to people or public group” and set to personB@keyman .com, then select the “delete it ”.
      21834-444444.png
    5. Finally we could click the “Finish” and apply this inbox rule when you needed. Then all messages received by this mailbox will be deleted and forwarded to personB@keyman .com.

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    If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

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  2. Bash 156 Reputation points
    2020-09-01T07:37:40.587+00:00

    Hi LucasLiu,
    thank you for your response.

    Your solution (create rule via Inbox rules instead of OOF forwarding rule) is like a workaround for me. I couldnt find any reliable resource, that this is a normal behavior.

    The transport service should always fire up MAILBOXRULE event, when forwarding rule is set via Inbox rule or via OOF rule. Its still forwarding. Inbox rule forwards message when its sent to distribution group, why not OOF rule?

    I already made some workarounds in the past when something didnt work as expected and these workaround was even confirmed by Microsoft.. and I couldnt say it was by design.

    Unless I find an official document describing, that forward rule on OOF doesnt forward messages sent to distribution list where I am member of, I cannot accept your statement "this is by design".

    Regards

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