The mailing lists in Google Apps do not support automatic responses. I have come up with a solution using a mailing list and eMail account, outlined below. In this example, the address that users would send mail to is [email protected]. This is a standard eMail address set up with a Vacation Responder (or Canned Response from Labs) and forwarding onto the Group (mailing list).
Google Apps Mailing List With Auto-Response
2 replies on “Google Apps Mailing List With Auto-Response”
For what it’s worth, I’ve had problems with email forwarding and using the vacation responder. The problem was that the message would get forwarded and the vacation responder would never kick in. Activating canned responses did fix the problem. At the same time, I believe I fought with “delete the message” as the option in the rule for forwarding, which might have affected the way the vacation responder worked. All in all, the best option was canned responses and creating a rule that utilized the reply you wanted.
I too have had better luck with the canned responses. In some testing, the vacation responder would take a couple hours to reply while the canned responses consistently produced an immediate reply message. Now if Google would just create a feature for Group auto-response messages this mess would not be a problem. 20% time, anyone?