Is there anyway to identify if an Outlook message has been sent with a scheduled delay?

Question

I suspect an employee is scheduling messages to be sent at different times during the evening to mislead our boss into thinking he is working at those times.

Answer 1

If he knows what he's doing, a simple script can fire an e-mail pretty much anytime. Outlook can also schedule the delivery time for messages.

Without carefully examining his computer it would be nearly impossible to prove that that's what's happening.

Answer 2

I use Outlook 2003 and there is an option that allows you to not send a message before a certain date and time. While within the message, click on "Options" on the toolbar. You will see a button that can be turned on under Delivery Options that says "Do not deliver before" and you can select a date and time. I'm not sure however, that the recipient would have any way of knowing that it was a delayed send or when it was actually generated.


Followup - I tested it on my computer - sent myself an email that I delayed for 2 minutes. The email came through with the actual time I sent it, not the delayed time. Therefore I would have to say that even if a message was composed before 5 and delayed to be sent until after 5, it appears it will still show the original time to the recipient. In addition, the time stamp on the email in my "sent items" folder was the original time.

Answer 3

If the employee can access his e-mail form home, or elsewhere, he can send at any time and it will look as if it came from the office. I don't know how you would determine where the message originated.