by  Scott Lowe MCSE

Most of the time when an employee is laid off, his or her e-mail needs to be directed to the person who will be taking over their duties.

Wouldn't it be nice if anyone sending mail to this account was notified that the account is no longer valid and provided with a direct e-mail address for the person's replacement? You can accomplish both of these goals fairly easily in Exchange.

At some point in your Exchange administration career, you'll need to set up a mechanism by which all e-mail from a resigned or laid-off employee is sent automatically to his or her replacement. At the same time, it would be nice if anyone sending mail to this account was notified that the account is no longer valid and provided with a direct e-mail address for the person's replacement. You can accomplish both of these goals fairly easily in Exchange.

To accomplish the redirection or forwarding of mail to another person, from a machine with the Exchange System Manager installed, open Active Directory Users and Computers. Open the properties page for the departed user and, from the Exchange General tab, click the Delivery Options button. In the 'Forwarding address' section, select the 'Forward to' option and type the email address for the user to whom all new mail should be forwarded.

To set up an automatic reply to senders that the recipient's email address has changed, log in to the system as the departed user and create an Out of Office rule that informs senders of the replacement's email address.

With both of these tasks accomplished, all incoming mail to the email address will be forwarded to a different user, and an automatic notification will be sent to senders letting them know that the person has left the building.