Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Managing Spam with ReplyManager

To many, the words spam and email management are two terms no one wants to see in the same sentence. No doubt, an oxymoron! Not only is spam a nuisance, but it is the catalyst for worms and viruses, slows down network traffic and is the source of lost productivity. So what do you do?

If you are using ReplyManager, here are a few reminders to keep Spam at bay:

Start With The Accounts Tab
Spam can be managed for each POP3 or IMAP account. From the Maintenance menu, click on Accounts. Choose the account you wish to edit. Spam handling is located at the bottom of the form.

**Note: If using the eBay API, you will not need a spam filter for those eBay messages. The email is read through a direct integration with eBay and does not have email originating from an outside source. 

What To Do With Emails Tagged as SPAM
You can select to delete spam or automatically move it to another folder for further investigation. We use a Junk or Spam folder for this. The emails within that folder can be bulk deleted in only a few steps.

Setting SpamAssassin Scores
Incoming emails are filtered using SpamAssassin. Detected spam can be auto deleted or moved to a folder for further investigation. Using a wide range of tests on the header, body and text of the email, SpamAssassin assigns a number on a scale of 1 to 10. Emails receiving a 5 or above, as a standard, are considered Spam. However, if you find that incorrect emails are being sent to your Spam folder (or other action selected), you may want to increase the rating. The higher the rating the more likely it is that the email is Spam.

Using Rules to Further Filter Spam
A new ReplyManager feature allows users to select a rule to process incoming emails, before SpamAssassin, in order to identify any email that might look like spam, but is not. These emails can be routed to a separate folder so that users do not lose any legitimate emails. Basically, the rules look for keywords (that you set) within the email that might make it valid.

Built-in Virus Protection
Because ReplyManager is a web application (built with open source tools), it is less susceptible to worms and viruses. It also has a built-in feature that tags potential viruses and defangs executable files (which are often a disaster waiting to happen).

by Suzan Tucker
Customer Care Manager