Message Rules
To access Message Rules actions go to Products > Message Rules.
In this screen you can create, edit, delete and reorder message rules. A message rule applies an action to a message if specific conditions are met.
The rules act as checkpoints that have to be passed before an email allowed to pass. Each rule has one or more designated actions assigned to it, which will trigger when specific conditions have been met. Emails will be checked against each rule until a Final Action is taken or all rules have been verified. The order of the rules in this screen determines the order that they are applied to each email.
One of the main uses of rules is to determine if an email might be spam, phishing, or might contain possible threats. This is done by calculating a Spam Score for each message. There are several rules that are designed to add or deduct from the total score if specific conditions are met. The score will determine what action will be taken:
An email with a score of between 100 and 140 will be quarantined but will be digested and available to users (the Possible Spam rule). All safelists will exclude this email from being quarantined.
An email with a score of between 140 and 699 will be sent to Company Quarantine and will not be digested (the Confirmed Spam rule). All safelists will exclude this email from being quarantined.
An email with a score greater than 700 will be sent to Company Quarantine and will not be digested (the Confirmed Phishing rule). Only Global safelists will exclude this email from being quarantined.
If the message has a score less than 100, no action will be taken (and further rules will be allowed to proceed).
Note
Each company will start out with a set of default system and standard rules. In some cases these rules are sufficient for an organization and no further action is needed, however we recommend that you familiarize yourself with them.
Message rules are composed by:
Conditions - one or more conditions can be applied to each rule. If all conditions are met, the assigned actions will be taken.
Actions - one or more actions can be assigned to each rule. They indicate what actions will be taken if all conditions are met.
Final Actions - a final action will be triggered once all the conditions are met and will stop all subsequent rules from being processed for this email.
Note
A rule will only be triggered if its Active status is set to On.
The Message Rules page contains the following elements:
Priority - Message rules are executed in the order they appear in this list. Organize the rules to establish the order they will be applied to each individual message.
Warning
Changing the default order of rules might impact GravityZone Security for Email functionality. We recommend caution when adding a rule before the premade default rules.
Direction - The Direction column indicates when the rule will be applied:
- this rule will only be processed against incoming emails.
- this rule will only be processed against outgoing emails.- - this email will be processed against all emails.
Note
Click on the column header to display a drop down menu that will allow you to filter out columns from the below display.
Rule Name -Displays the name of each given rule.
Note
A lock icon
indicates that the rule cannot be edited or deleted.System rules are marked by a gray background and a
(Default)tag.
Final Action - Shows if a final action is applied to a specific rule and what that final action is.
Active - This column indicates if a rule is active or not. Clicking on the indicator will activate/deactivate the rule.
Actions - there are two buttons available in this column:
Change Rule - edit the rule.
Delete Rule - delete the rule.
View System Rules - toggle this button to display or hide system rules from the list below.
Note
You can use the
Refresh button to refresh the list.Add Rule - create a new rule.
Creating a new message rule
To create a new rule follow the below steps:
Click the
Add Rule button at the upper right side of the screen.Enter a descriptive rule name and click the Add
button. This will open the Rule Builder screen.Set the Active button on or off.
Note
Newly created Rules are inactive by default.
Inactive rules will not be checked against any messages.
(optional) Re-name the rule.
(optional) Add a description to the rule - this is only visible from the Rule Builder screen and can be used to add a short explanation of what the rule is intended to do.
Add the conditions. You can add one or more conditions to your rule. You can find a list of all available conditions here.
Note
Be as specific as possible when creating conditions to avoid accidental triggering.
If more than one condition is added to the rule, all have to be passed for the action(s) assigned to the rule to be taken.
When creating a condition, you can set it to either Match or Does not Match when comparing against a specific value or data set.
Conditions can be system defaults or custom. Custom conditions can be accessed from the Custom Rule Data screen.
Add the actions. You can add one or more actions, both regular actions and final actions. You can find a list of all available actions here and a list of all available final actions here. A list of rule examples can be found here.
Note
Actions are taken only if every condition set to the rule has been passed.
Actions do not halt the processing of further Message Rules. So, it's possible that an email can trigger several different Rules. Processing will continue (in priority order) until the email triggers a Rule that has a Final Action.
Final Actions will stop the processing of further Message rules.
If a regular action is triggered, processing will continue by checking the message against other rules(in priority order) until a Final Action is taken or all rules have been processed.
Click the Save
button.
Re-ordering message rules
To change the order in which your message rules are processed, drag and drop it to a new position.
Note
You can not re-order System Rules.
Editing a message rule
To edit a Rule, double-click the rule's title in the Message Rules screen or click on the Change Rule button. This will open the Rule Builder screen.
Once the modifications are complete, click the save button.
Deleting a message rule
To delete a Rule:
Click the delete
button next to the rule you want to delete in the Message Rules screen.OR
Click the delete
button while editing a rule.