Spam Checks -> Custom Rules

Idea shared by kevind - 5/16/2021 at 1:43 PM

Completed

SmarterMail offers the ability to create a custom rule under Spam Checks. It's useful to enter a keyword, phrase, or URL to score messages for spam or phishing.

Here are a few suggestions to make it easier to use:

Enlarge the dialog box so you don't have to scroll to see half of the settings.
For rule source (header, body, raw content), not sure how raw content is different from body and if it's really necessary to distinguish.
Explain what the Match Multiple setting does. Couldn't find any explanation in Help. Ideally, just re-word it so it's self-explanatory and there's no need to access Help.
If you enter several phrases and use the match multiple, it will assign points for each time the phrase is used. But points get doubled because phrase usually appears 2x in message (once in plain text and once in HTML).

Just providing feedback to make SmarterMail a better, easier-to-use software product.

Thanks!

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kevind Replied

6/3/2021 at 2:33 PM

Bump.

How about just making the dialog larger so you can see all the options. The "Enable Spool Filtering" checkbox is below the fold and it's easy to miss.

Thanks.

Gabriele Maoret - SERSIS Replied

6/4/2021 at 11:18 AM

Gabriele Maoret - Head of SysAdmins at SERSIS Currently manages 6 SmarterMail installations (1 in the cloud for SERSIS which provides services to a few hundred third-party email domains + 5 on-premise for customers who prefer to have their mail server in-house)

kevind Replied

6/29/2021 at 11:29 AM

OK, just bumping this again as these are good suggestions with 9 votes, but no reply.

Employee Replied

6/29/2021 at 12:09 PM

Employee Post

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for your feedback! I'll get these requests escalated for an internal review by the product management team.

Employee Replied

7/26/2021 at 5:02 PM

Employee Post

Hi all,

I have some updates for you!

Enlarge the dialog box so you don't have to scroll to see half of the settings.

The custom spam check modal size follows suit with the rest of the SmarterMail modals in this area. On a larger screen, you can see all modal content. On smaller screens, scrolling the modal will be necessary.

For rule source (header, body, raw content), not sure how raw content is different from body and if it's really necessary to distinguish.

Header looks at all instances of the header specified.
Body looks at the HTML and Plain Text content of the email body.
Raw Content looks at the entire email as a whole.

Explain what the Match Multiple setting does. Couldn't find any explanation in Help. Ideally, just re-word it so it's self-explanatory and there's no need to access Help.

If you enter several phrases and use the match multiple, it will assign points for each time the phrase is used. But points get doubled because phrase usually appears 2x in message (once in plain text and once in HTML).

The Online Help has been updated to include this definition: "Enabling Match Multiple allows the spam weight calculated for the rule to increase based on multiple instances of the Rule Text that's added. In general, a custom spam check based on any Rule Source will check for the FIRST instance of a word or phrase that's been added to the Rule Text and apply that weight. It doesn't matter if all of the words or phrases are found -- only the FIRST instance is counted and the weight applied. When Match Multiple is enabled, the first instance of ALL words or phrases in the Rule Source is counted and the total score is used. (NOTE: when using Body as the Rule Source, the spam check looks at both the HTML and plain text versions of a message, primarily because these versions may differ in content. As a result, the total weight may vary.)" For further clarification, below are some examples.

With this custom spam check:

An incoming email that contains two separate headers of "Test: Pickles" will get a weight of 20 for this spam check. ("Pickles" in the first header will trigger a weight of 10, and "Pickles" in the second header will trigger a weight of 10.)
An incoming email that contains a single header of "Test: Pickles Pickles" will get a weight of 10 for this spam check. (The first instance of "Pickles" in the header will trigger a weight of 10.)
An incoming email that contains a header of "Test: Pickles Pickles" and a header of "Test: Tomato" will get a weight of 20 for this spam check. (The first instance of "Pickles" in the first header will trigger a weight of 10, and the instance of "Tomato" in the second header will trigger a weight of 10.)

With this custom spam check:

An incoming email that contains HTML and a body of "Pickles Tomato" will get a weight of 40 for this spam check. ("Pickles" in the HTML content will trigger a weight of 10, "Pickles" in the plain text content will trigger a weight of 10, "Tomato" in the HTML content will trigger a weight of 10, and "Tomato" in the plain text content will trigger a weight of 10.)
An incoming email that contains HTML and a body of "Pickles Pickles Tomato Tomato" will get a weight of 40 for this spam check. (Only the first instance of the Rule Text words in the HTML content and plain text content will trigger the weight.)
An incoming email that contains plain text only and a body of "Pickles Tomato" will get a weight of 20 for this spam check. ("Pickles" in the plain text will trigger a weight of 10, and "Tomato" in the plain text will trigger a weight of 10.)

With this custom spam check:

An incoming email that contains HTML, a subject of "Pickles" and a body "Tomato" will get a weight of 20 for this spam check. ("Pickles" in the subject will trigger a weight of 10, and "Tomato" in the body will trigger a weight of 10.)
An incoming email that contains HTML, a subject of "Pickles" and a body "Pickles" will get a weight of 10 for this spam check. (The first instance of "Pickles" in the subject will trigger a weight of 10. The second instance of "Pickles" in the body is ignored.)

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