[Case 44618] Start/stop dates for vacation responder/auto responder via Webmail

[ristacom]

I was surprised to discover that the auto-responder feature in the cpanel does not allow for start and stop dates. From my experience as an IT consultant, start/stop dates for auto responders are fairly standard. Are there any plans to add this feature?

[JCM1JCM]

How many of you have ever wanted to setup an auto reply , vacation message but hate that you have to wait and go through a long process to do this and then delete it every time.

Part I

Add the option to setup a start and stop date when you click on the auto responder icon.
Give us the ability to click on start date and stop date and then be able to enter in the month day and year but also give us the ability to click on a calendar icon next to it and traverse through the days, months or years and select the desired start date ,stop date. Also, give us the ability to set multiple start/stop dates and also a start and end time.

Part II: Give us the ability to add different vacation messages and attach schedules to each one, similar to the way you probably do with your voice mail system.

[cPanelDavidG]

I have merged this thread with the existing thread for this feature request.

I like the calendar idea, it makes working with dates much more international-friendly so a client from the UK on a US-based server doesn't accidentally use 1/2/2011 to mean February 1, 2011 where the server may interpret it as January 2, 2011. Calendars are less prone to localization issues, the only one I can recall offhand is what is classified as a weekend (which is not particularly relevant here) and what day of the week to start a week on (Sunday vs. Monday). Both are a bit easier to get past than figuring out what 1/2/2011 is intended to represent.

To preserve current auto-responder functionality, there should be some way to indicate an auto-responder should begin immediately and never end.

The idea of multiple start dates/end dates makes sense from a user standpoint since they probably use the same vacation message for all vacations and may want to set them up as soon as they have scheduled their vacations. From a technical standpoint, this can be more difficult to implement.

From a UI perspective, how should this be implemented? Perhaps some AJAX-powered screen where you can click a link "Add additional period of time to use this automated responder" and another pair of calendars displays?

Regarding multiple auto-responders, it is my understanding that a single webmail account can currently configure multiple auto-responders and the above would be part of the screen where one can configure an individual auto-responder.

[JCM1JCM]

yes,

Ajax, would be perfect but doesn't have to be.
Just have a spot like

Start Date: where they can type it, then have an icon of a calenar that will pop
up either ajax or a java applet where he/she can pick their date. it will show the current month, and it will have arrows at the top to go back a month or go forward a month.

and same for the year

Stop Date: same thing

Same for time

and across from the it

have the time

Example

Start Date: Stop Date
Start Time End Time:

Since people read left to right...

[Arturas88]

This may look like something simillar to image which I have attached,
please replace this autoresponder with currently available.

[Arturas88]

It would be wonderful to know when this thing will be implemented.
Or if you believe it will take some time till official release, could you make an addon / plugin / patch, with witch it would be possible to use this feature.

[Arturas88]

Hello,
I`m writing to this tread several times, and haven't got any answers.

Please provide Vacation plugin, like it is in other normal world, with start/end dates, so that it will be possible in future just change start / end dates, maybe text message too, click Update, and everything would work again.

After that please provide API for this plugin.

[cPanelDavidG]

I'm getting ready to forward a report to our developers. Please review the following report to ensure it accurately reflects the functionality you desire:

Start/Stop dates for Auto-Responder

A new feature should be added to the auto-responder capabilities of cPanel and Webmail: the ability to set automatic start and end dates for a specific message. This is useful for vacation auto-replies, so they can be set in advance when an employee knows they will be out of the office. This also eliminates the issue of people forgetting to turn off auto-responders created as vacation auto-replies.

UI recommendations include displaying a calendar for requesting start date and and date, similar to how most contemporary websites accept date input. The UI should accommodate traversing through days, months and years. Additionally, the UI should accommodate a specific start time (e.g. 16:00) and a specific end time so users that work third shift can be easily accommodated, for example.

Be mindful that not all locales use the same date format. However, given the choice between being confused by what is represented by 4/6/11 and being confused by a calendar that starts on an "abnormal" day of the week (Sunday, Monday, Saturday, Friday), overcoming the confusion of a calendar is preferable.

This functionality should also be made available via APIs, for potential integration with PTO systems.

Ideally, this feature would have the ability to set multiple start/end dates, allowing for automatic re-use of the same message.

[PhillipS]

Why worry about the "bells and wistles (AJAX)"

Hard to believe that this is not "in demand" and still outstanding.
Seems quite easy to be done with a normal Checkbox stating "Activate"

Please, I am feeling

[Arturas88]

Be mindful that not all locales use the same date format. However, given the choice between being confused by what is represented by 4/6/11 and being confused by a calendar that starts on an "abnormal" day of the week (Sunday, Monday, Saturday, Friday), overcoming the confusion of a calendar is preferable.

Just add calendar, than, you could use some functions from PHP for example as strtotime() with date() to convert date to formart which your system would read correctly.

Everything else you have mentioned are exactly how it should function.

[cPanelDavidG]

Just add calendar, than, you could use some functions from PHP for example as strtotime() with date() to convert date to formart which your system would read correctly.

Raw string input for dates can create many challenges. Keep in mind, it is actually quite common for a server to be in one country (e.g. the UK) but a customer to be in another country (e.g. the US). Since cPanel/WHM currently does not store such specific locale information about an individual cPanel user, relying on system settings for raw string input of dates can lead to unanticipated results (at least for the US customer on the UK server), such as 3/31/2011 being an invalid date or a reply set to begin on 4-2-2011 beginning February 4 rather than April 2.

I'll leave it to our developers how they want to represent dates and times on the back-end, but I believe the front-end UI should be sufficiently abstract to get around these localization issues.

[Arturas88]

Raw string input for dates can create many challenges. Keep in mind, it is actually quite common for a server to be in one country (e.g. the UK) but a customer to be in another country (e.g. the US). Since cPanel/WHM currently does not store such specific locale information about an individual cPanel user, relying on system settings for raw string input of dates can lead to unanticipated results (at least for the US customer on the UK server), such as 3/31/2011 being an invalid date or a reply set to begin on 4-2-2011 beginning February 4 rather than April 2.

I'll leave it to our developers how they want to represent dates and times on the back-end, but I believe the front-end UI should be sufficiently abstract to get around these localization issues.

Ok, I have another question: not lying, when do you believe those functions will be ready for end-users?

[cPanelDavidG]

Ok, I have another question: not lying, when do you believe those functions will be ready for end-users?

Work will not commence until a time after I submit a report requesting this functionality. Right now, we are still ironing out this feature via the forums.

This is all detailed in one of the stickies for the Feature Request Forum.

[Kent Brockman]

+1 for this functionality!

[cPanelDavidG]

I'm about to send a report to our development team regarding this functionality. Please let me know if there is anything in this draft of the report you would like me to change before submitting to the developers. If there is no further feedback, I will submit this to our developers around November 11, 2010.

Add start and stop dates for auto-responder in auto-responder interfaces (both cPanel and Webmail)

Many employees at businesses use auto-responders to indicate they are on vacation. Sometimes, people forget to turn off their auto-responders upon their return. Being able to set a start and end date when you know weeks ahead of time when you will be on vacation would be very useful.

Start dates and stop dates are best entered via a graphical calendar interface. This will avoid confusion of a resident of the UK entering 3/5/2011 to mean 3rd of May in 2011 vs. an American entering 3/5/2011 to mean March the 5th of 2011. Granted, localization issues are still present such as which day of the week a week should begin on. However, those issues are not as catastrophic in nature.

A start time and end time should also be accommodated so employees that work overnight shifts can also be served by this functionality. Given the lack of ability to specify a timezone for a cPanel account, start and end times would be based off server time, not local time.

Initially, this feature should support 1 start time and 1 end time. Ideally, over time, this feature would accommodate multiple groupings of start and end times.