The goal of this blog is to provide technical notes where we have solved various issues migrating other clients to the cloud, which others may also encounter. We hope the technical tips for cloud migration we write here are helpful.

Problem: A shared mailbox has been defined in Office 365 and you want to generate an automatic reply (such as replying to external emails sent to “support@xxx.com”). The problem is that the shared mailbox is not a “real” account and so rules for it cannot be setup using Outlook.

Solution: Log on to Office 365 using a userid that has administrator rights and has a real mailbox i.e. has a Office365 licence assigned

1) If you are not at the OWA (Outlook Web Apps) page click on Outlook in the top menu list so you are looking at your emails

2) Click on your name (top right hand side) and select “Open another mailbox”

3) Enter the shared mailbox for which you wish to have auto replies set up e.g. support@xxx.com. Note you may be prompted to select language and time zone for this mailbox as this may be the first time the share mailbox has been opened in OWA.

4) Once it is open you will see the emails for this shared mailbox and you click on the “gear” symbol on top right hand side. In the drop down menu list select “Options”

5) Click the option “organize email” on the left-hand side

6) Click on “automatic replies” from the menu list on the upper right hand side

7) Turn on “Select automatic replies” and fill in the automatic reply text for external senders.

8) Click Save button

9) Click log out – note that your original OWA session is still open.