# Automatic response to new topic (OOO style)
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatic-response-to-new-topic-ooo-style/383032
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** automation
**Created:** [September 17, 2025, 8:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatic-response-to-new-topic-ooo-style/383032 "2025-09-17T20:14:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@tknospdr](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tknospdr)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2025, 8:14pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatic-response-to-new-topic-ooo-style/383032/1 "2025-09-17T20:14:54Z")
In our current ticket system, if someone e-mails in to create a new topic, I have the ‘out of office’ feature of the mail account automatically reply, but only once per any 7 day period per unique address.
Is there a way to duplicate this feature if someone creates a ticket in the web interface?
1. Customer creates new topic in the tickets category.
2. If customer has not created a new post or topic in this category in X days, then…
3. Auto reply to new topic with whatever I want the response to be. In our case it’s general troubleshooting advice.
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### Author:  [@ondrej](https://meta.discourse.org/u/ondrej)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2025, 9:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatic-response-to-new-topic-ooo-style/383032/2 "2025-09-17T21:33:56Z")
The Automation plugin has an [auto responder](https://meta.discourse.org/t/creating-an-auto-responder-automation/285031). Is that of any use to you at a glance?
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### Author:  [@tknospdr](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tknospdr)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2025, 3:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatic-response-to-new-topic-ooo-style/383032/3 "2025-09-18T15:54:07Z")
I had looked at it before posting, and didn’t think it would work for what I wanted to do.
When I rethought how to use it, I think it’ll work for the most part.
I was coming at it from the mindset of a single generic response, but with the auto responder I can tailor the responses based on keywords, the problem is if none of the keywords are mentioned, can I use a wildcard to send my generic response?
And does it just parse from the top down, so if there’s multiple keywords it just hits on the first one?
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### Author:  [@tobiaseigen](https://meta.discourse.org/u/tobiaseigen)
#### Post date: [September 26, 2025, 5:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/automatic-response-to-new-topic-ooo-style/383032/4 "2025-09-26T17:13:22Z")
This does seem to be a case for automation and it’s a good idea, but I am not aware of an existing automation script for it. It’s possible to create a plugin to add to the core provided automations, so you could create this yourself or ask in #Marketplace.