forwarding email with autoreply on Office 365

One of my clients' preferred way to handle a departed employee is to set up an autoreply and forward the email to another staff member.  This doesn't work as it should on Office 365.  With a regular on-premise Exchange server, you can set up the autoreply in the mailbox and configure forwarding with still delivering the message to the departed user's mailbox, and it works as intended.

With Office 365, the forwading happens, but the autoreply doesn't go out even though the mailbox is configured to receive the message.  Very annoying.

To get around this, I had to configure the autoreply and set up an Outlook rule to forward the messages.

While researching this, I found this semi-helpful page on dealing with terminated employees when you have Office 365:
https://www.cogmotive.com/blog/office-365-tips/dealing-with-terminated-employees-in-office-365

Office365 Shell Commands (for reference)

As of 3/5/13, here are the commands I have used for adjusting Office365.  Generally, I run a PowerShell script the enters all the commands for me once I log in.  I describe the process for setting up and using the PowerShell script here:
http://t-solve.blogspot.com/2013/11/how-i-configure-script-to-get-into.html


From there, I can run any of these commands

remove password expiration:
Get-MsolUser | Set-MsolUser –PasswordNeverExpires $True

remove password complexity requirements:
Get-MsolUser | Set-MsolUser -StrongPasswordRequired $false
(of note - you can only set non-complex passwords via shell, not in the web interface, the web interface will still require complex passwords.  And all passwords, even in the shell, must be 8 characters long)

set user password in the shell:
Set-MsolUserPassword -UserPrincipalName user@contoso.com  -NewPassword "orange42" -ForceChangePassword $false

give Bob full access to Joe's mailbox:
Add-MailboxPermission -identity joe@contoso.com -user bob@contoso.com -AccessRights FullAccess

remove Bob's full access to Joe's mailbox:
Remove-MailboxPermission -Identity joe@contoso.com -User bob@contoso.com -AccessRights FullAccess

give Bob send as access to Joe's mailbox:

Add-RecipientPermission joe@contoso.com -AccessRights SendAs -Trustee bob@contoso.com -Confirm:$false

forward Joe's email to Bob (oddly, for the mailbox to be forwarded, you enter the mailbox name and enter the address for where you're forwarding):
Set-Mailbox -Identity joe.smith -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $true -ForwardingSMTPAddress bob@contoso.com

check forwarding status of a Joe's mailbox:
Get-Mailbox jos.smith| Ft ForwardingSMTPAddress

cancel forwarding of Joe's email
Set-Mailbox -Identity joe.smith -DeliverToMailboxAndForward $false -ForwardingSMTPAddress $null

give Bob.Jones publishing editor permission to Joe.Smith's calendar (in this command, you use usernames and not full email addresses):

Add-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity “Joe.Smith:\Calendar” -AccessRights PublishingEditor -User Bob.Jones

give Bob.Jones publishing editor permission to Joe.Smith's contacts (in this command, you use usernames and not full email addresses):
Add-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity “Joe.Smith:\Contacts” -AccessRights PublishingEditor -User Bob.Jones

In the two commands above, possible permissions are: Owner, PublishingEditor, Editor, PublishingAuthor, Author, NonEditingAuthor, Reviewer, Contributor, AvailabilityOnly, LimitedDetails

Calling Office365 support

Microsoft seems to make it as difficult as possible to find the number for phone support for Office365.  After going through the trials and tribulations of finding it, I'm putting it here:

1-800-865-9408