Does emClient need to be "open" on the desktop for rules to work?

I have no problem setting up “rules” per se; in this instance, I want to “forward” emails received by me to somebody in my contact list while I’m on vacation.  The question begs however:  Do I need to keep my emClient open on the desktop of my computer in order for emclient to work?  Added information:  I’m using emClient to view work related email that comes to my Exchange Server that we host internally.

Hello Alex,
rules set up inside eM Client are not applied if eM Client is closed.
If you need to forward messages while you are away you will need to set this rule on your server, unfortunately.

Regards,
Olivia

Okay.  Just so I know the rules.  I can set up auto responses and mail forwarding rules outside of emClient.  I didn’t need to do this using Microsoft Outlook.  But, that’s still not a deal breaker necessarily.  Let me see how to accomplish this.  Take care and thank you for responding so quickly!  Alex In Toledo