M365 Changelog: Voicemail: Automatic activation of out of office (OOF) greetings based on OOF Calendar events to be retired

MC727450 – Today, end users have three options for voicemail OOF greetings activation:

• All the time
• When I have an Outlook auto reply
• When I have an Out of Office calendar event (to be retired)

The voicemail feature that automatically activates an out-of-office greeting based on an out-of-office event in Outlook calendar will be retired.

This decision is driven by Microsoft commitment to strengthen customer data protection. In addition, retiring this feature will help reduce costs, as it has a significant environmental footprint and relatively low usage.

When will this happen:

Microsoft will be rolling out this change beginning in early June 2024 and expect to complete by early August 2024.

How this will affect your organization:

Going forward, end users can continue to manage their OOF greetings with two available options by navigating to Settings -> Calls -> Configure Voicemail in the Teams client:

• All the time
• When I have an Outlook auto reply

What you need to do to prepare:

Although only a small number of users have set custom out-of-office greetings in Voicemail, Microsoft recommends notifying all users that the automatic activation of OOF greetings based on Outlook calendar events will be retired.