When team members are on vacation or unavailable, maintaining efficient incident response becomes challenging. Microsoft 365 provides built-in out-of-office functionality that automatically sets status indicators and sends autoreplies when employees are away. Resolve leverages this native functionality to intelligently manage incident assignments, ensuring that new cases don't pile up on unavailable team members' desks while maintaining optimal response times for your organization.

Understanding how to configure and utilize out-of-office management in Resolve will help you maintain consistent incident resolution even when key team members are temporarily unavailable.

Understanding Microsoft 365 Out-of-Office Status

Microsoft 365 offers comprehensive out-of-office capabilities through Outlook and Teams that go beyond simple email autoreplies. When employees set their out-of-office status, the system automatically:

• Displays availability indicators across all Microsoft 365 applications
• Sends automatic responses to incoming emails
• Updates presence status in Teams conversations
• Syncs availability information across the entire Microsoft ecosystem
• Blocks calendar during the Out-of-Office time
• Declines meetings and new invitations that occurs during that period

This status information becomes particularly valuable for incident management systems like Resolve, as it provides real-time visibility into team member availability without requiring separate status tracking or manual updates.

How Resolve Integrates with Out-of-Office Status

Resolve seamlessly connects with Microsoft 365's availability data to make intelligent assignment decisions. Rather than blindly assigning incidents to unavailable team members, Resolve can adapt its assignment algorithm to focus on available responders.

This integration ensures that incidents reach team members who can actually respond, reducing response times and preventing important cases from sitting unattended in unavailable users' queues. The system automatically detects when team members return from their time off and resumes normal assignment patterns.

Configuring Out-of-Office Exclusion for Response Teams

To configure out-of-office management for your Response Teams, navigate to the Response Teams section in the administration interface. When creating or editing a team, you'll find the option "Exclude out-of-office teammates for new incidents" in the Assignment Rules section.

The out-of-office exclusion feature is disabled by default, meaning administrators must actively enable it if they want to use this functionality. When enabled, Resolve modifies its standard Round Robin assignment algorithm to skip team members who have set their out-of-office status in Microsoft 365. New incidents will only be assigned to available team members, ensuring optimal response times and preventing work overload when team members return from vacation. When disabled, Resolve continues its standard assignment pattern regardless of team member availability status.

When the exclusion feature is enabled, the system maintains the balanced workload distribution among available members while temporarily removing unavailable ones from the assignment rotation. When out-of-office team members return and update their availability status, they automatically rejoin the assignment cycle.

Handling Complete Team Unavailability

In situations where all team members are simultaneously out of office, Resolve implements a protective mechanism to prevent incidents from being assigned inappropriately. When the system detects that no team members are available for assignment, incoming incidents are assigned to the Response Team as a whole rather than to any individual teammate.

When this occurs, company administrators automatically receive notifications alerting them to the situation. This allows administrators to manually review and reassign these incidents to alternative teams or available responders, ensuring that critical issues don't go unaddressed during team-wide unavailability periods.

Best Practices for Out-of-Office Management

To maximize the effectiveness of out-of-office integration, ensure that team members consistently update their availability status in Microsoft 365 when taking time off. Regular communication about planned absences and proper use of out-of-office settings will improve the system's ability to make optimal assignment decisions.

Consider temporarily adding additional members to Response Teams during periods when multiple regular team members will be unavailable simultaneously, such as during vacation seasons or planned time off. The out-of-office exclusion feature works best when combined with proactive team planning that anticipates availability gaps and adjusts team composition accordingly.