Vacation Replies
Are you going to be out of the office for a day or two or more?  Would you like to let your customers know that you did receive their email and will respond to them when you return.  Or give them the name/number of someone else that may be able to help them while you are away?

You could setup a vacation reply.  Your email server type dictates how this could be done.  If your email server is Unix/Linux based, you will need to configure a few different files to make this happen.  You will need to setup the actual message you want your Sender to receive. Finally you need another file to tell the OS that to send the vacation reply that was setup. 

On a Windows Email server there are a couple ways to setup vacation replies.  Which one is best is more of a personal preference.  One approach requires you to leave your PC on with the mail client (Outlook/Outlook Express) open.  If you do not want to leave your PC on there are other ways to accomplish this. 

If your email is hosted off-site, by an Email/Web hosting company, they may have different ways to accomplish a reply while you are gone.  You may want to talk to your hosting company to see how they do it, and what the requirements are.

Email Aliases
An email alias is a way to receive mail to one address but have it show up in your email inbox.  For example, you could setup an alias of "Sales" but have the actual email go to Bob in the sales department.  Before you think that you can stop getting all that spam by using an alias, I must inform you, that it will not work. 

All an alias will do is allow a designated "name or department" to be used for the part of the email address BEFORE the "@" symbol.   bob@example.com is still a valid email address so if you send an email to sales@example.com then Bob would receive that one also.  Email aliases are useful for setting department (sales,info,support) based email addresses for your company.  Then mail can be sent to the department head or a group of people in that department.  

Setting this up has the same OS and Email server considerations as the vacation replies discussion above.

If you need help setting up a vacation reply, or an email alias, contact the CCS Support Department at 800-672-4806 or email us.  Together we can figure out the best way to keep your customers informed of your absence and get the  important emails to the correct people to take action.

-Bryan