<remark>Added use cases for removing vacation settings; described semantics when start and end times are not specified; changed document type to Informational; small editorial changes.</remark>
<p>Popular electronic mail systems have long including features that allow users to set up automated messages that are returned to message senders when the user is not able to deal with the message immediately. This feature is commonly known as "vacation messages", because it is most commonly used when a user is unable to read their messages because they are on vacation.</p>
<p>This document describes a similar system that allows Jabber users to setup vacation messages when they are away.</p>
</section1>
<section1topic='Requirements'>
<p>The requirements for this document are fairly straightforward. A user MUST be able to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Discover if their server supports vacation messages.</li>
<li>Retrieve their current vacation settings.</li>
<li>Set new vacation settings.</li>
<li>Remove vacation settings.</li>
</ul>
<p>Additionally, a server supporting vacation messages MUST respond to a message sent to a local user that has an active vacation message set by automatically sending that message to the sender.</p>
</section1>
<section1topic='Use cases'>
<section2topic='Discovering support for vacation messages'>
<p>Before attempting to set or retrieve its current vacation settings, a user SHOULD first verify that their server supports vacation messages. To do this, the user makes a &xep0030; "#info" query to their server. If supported, the server includes a feature of "http://www.jabber.org/protocol/vacation" in the result.</p>
<p><message/> contains the text of the message that will be sent to a remote user that sends the user a message while they have active vacation settings.</p>
<p>If the user has no stored vacation settings, the user will receive a result like the following:</p>
<examplecaption='User does not have any vacation settings'><![CDATA[
<iqtype='result'id='get1'/>
]]></example>
</section2>
<section2topic='Setting new vacation settings'>
<p>A user may set new vacation settings by sending a IQ to the local server like so:</p>
<examplecaption='Setting new vacation settings'><![CDATA[
<message>I'm attending OSCON in sunny Portland and won't be able to
read your message until I get back. If its urgent, please
send email to rob@cataclysm.cx.</message>
</query>
</iq>
]]></example>
<examplecaption='Vacation settings set successfully'><![CDATA[
<iqtype='result'id='set1'/>
]]></example>
<p>The meaning of each element is as outlined above. All elements are required.</p>
<p>Additionally, the <start/> and <end/> elements MAY be empty (ie have no CDATA). When <start/> is empty, the server MUST take this to mean that the settings should take effect immediately. Similarly, when <end/> is empty, the server MUST take this to mean that the settings should never expire (unless they are explicitly removed).</p>
</section2>
<section2topic='Removing vacation settings'>
<p>A user may remove all stored vacation settings by sending a IQ to the local server like so:</p>
<p>A server implementing vacation messages MUST reply to the message using the text specified in the receiving users' vacation settings if the time that message arrived from the remote users falls within data range specified, but only if the received message is to be queued for later delivery.</p>
<p>Implementing servers SHOULD (if local resource contraints allow) only send one automated response to a remote user for each local user that has active vacation settings. The memory of this action MUST be reset when the active settings have expired or when the user resets or removes them.</p>