Templating Your Autoresponder

We do not receive a lot of feature requests but, when we do, they tend to be great ideas. The feature we are going to be talking about was not suggested once, but twice (thank you Tanesha and Sander!): the ability to template the autoresponder message, which means providing you with the ability of using variables in your autoresponder that will be replaced at the moment of turning it on. This is better understood with a generic example:

  1. say that the template is Hello {{ NAME }}
  2. if NAME is a substitution variable and is set to Luis, the resulting string will be Hello Luis
  3. That simple

Now, getting into the specifics of AutoOOO: what variables can be used? The obvious ones are those already part of the Out of Office event that the user has created: event title and description. The non so obvious ones are those that we can infer from the event, like the Out of Office end date. So, these are the available variables:

  • {{ OOO_EVENT_TITLE }} will be replaced by the OOO calendar event title
  • {{ OOO_EVENT_DESC }} will be replaced by the OOO calendar event description
  • {{ OOO_UNTIL }} will be replaced by the date after the OOO finishes

Let’s now use a concrete example. Say we create the following event:

  • Event title: OOO: vacationing :)
  • Event description: I am on vacation. Please reach out to jane.doe@example.com if you need anything during my absence.
  • Event dates: from Feb 2nd to Feb 9th, 2024

If we configure AutoOOO with the following settings:

  • AutoOOO subject: Thanks for reaching out. {{ OOO_EVENT_TITLE }}
  • AutoOOO message: Hey, it seems that I am not available. Sorry about that. {{ OOO_EVENT_DESC }}. I will be back on {{ OOO_UNTIL }}. Thank you,

The autoresponder replies will be like:

Subject: Thanks for reaching out. OOO: vacationing :)
Message: Hey, it seems that I am not available. Sorry about that. I am on vacation. 
Please reach out to jane.doe@example.com if you need anything during my absence. 
I will be back on 10.02.2024.

Note how the OOO_UNTIL is replaced not by the period’s end date, but by the day after.

The feature is now publicly available. We also used the opportunity to revamp the Settings UI in the add-on. Enjoy!