Automatically create an out-of-office reply based on calendar events in Google Apps

Question

I would like to change the content of the out-of-office (Vacation responder) message in my Google Apps account based on events in my Google calendar. (I am the admin of the Google Apps domain)

For example: I would create a separate calendar where I enter all the days when I am out of office as events that can last multiple days. I would like my Vacation Responder to turn on automatically on the day the event in the calendar starts with a message like: I'm out of office from [Start date of event] till [End date of event]. Reason: [Event title].. When the event ends the Vacation responder should be turned automatically off.

For extra credit: I would like to deploy this solution automatically to each user of the Google Apps domain.

Answer 1

I think your best bet is to develop an app engine app that uses the Task Queue API to periodically check the calendar that you provide it and make the appropriate changes using the Google APIs. This is something that would obviously require a fair amount of development experience. It does, however, allow you to deploy it relatively easily into your apps account and each user could enable it by granting it access from the dashboard.

Answer 2

This is not part of the default Google Apps behavior.

Someone might be able to write a Marketplace app to do that in a scripted fashion.

Or you can do it yourself by writing a Chrome extension and distributing it to your users.

Answer 3

I think your best bet is to use some custom programming and the Google API's

...or use a third party tool like SmartReply: http://www.smartreplyapp.com