Introduction

Built-in Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace spam filters do a great job of blocking obvious spam messages. However, these filters often allow the delivery of commercial marketing and bulk emails from legitimate senders. These emails, referred to as graymail, may include newsletters, product updates, or job offers. Graymail is generally harmless, but whether the content is useful depends on each recipient’s point of view.

The Personal Spam Filter targets the graymail that gets past most spam filters and operates in addition to the Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace spam filters. It offers the following core functionalities:

• Personal Filter
• Organization Filter

The Personal Filter provides individual mail filtering functionality to each email recipient. When a recipient determines that an email is unwanted and should be blocked, the recipient can mark the email as junk by clicking Block as Junk in the EmployeeShield banner. Future emails from this sender that are intended for the recipient will be blocked. However, other organization recipients will continue receiving emails from this sender.

The Organization Filter allows administrators to manage a list of senders to block at the organization level. This filter applies to all email recipients in the organization. Meaning, that all emails sent from the addresses configured in the filter are blocked globally.  

This guide provides the information for implementing each of the filters that comprise the Personal Spam Filter.

Note: Enabling or disabling filters or changing filter-related options may take up to 24 hours to be implemented.

Enable the Personal Filter

This section describes the steps Graphus MSP Admins must perform to enable the Personal Filter for an organization. Key default settings that are required to enable the feature are emphasized.

Note: The Personal Filter does not support shared inboxes. The filter was built to create a personal mail profile for each recipient to stop unwanted emails from reaching the recipient's inbox. Graphus is not able to create a personal mail profile for inboxes that are used by multiple users.

To enable the Personal Filter:

1. Log into the Graphus portal using your MSP admin credentials. 
2. On the Organizations page, click the applicable organization.
   
   
3. In the navigation menu, select Settings.
   
   
4. Scroll to the EmployeeShield® Banner with Mail Filtering section and verify the Enable EmployeeShield® Banner toggle is enabled. If it is not, click the toggle to enable it.
   

   

5. In the Rollout section, the option selected determines the employees for whom the EmployeeShield banner and the Personal Filter are enabled.
   • Enable EmployeeShield for all protected accounts: Selected by default, this option enables the EmployeeShield banner for all employee email accounts. If this option is selected, the Personal Filter is available to all employees.
   • Enable EmployeeShield only for selected accounts: The EmployeeShield banner is enabled only for the employee email addresses entered. If this option is selected, the Personal Filter is available only to the employees specified in this option.

6. Verify that the following options are selected:

   • Application to New & Not Yet Trusted Senders: Enable & apply to: All Emails. 
     For a banner to be displayed on emails from new or not yet trusted senders and for the Personal Filter to be activated, this option must be enabled. It is recommended that All Emails be selected. 
   • Recipient Interaction: Interactive.
     This allows email recipients to mark emails as junk. It is required that Interactive is selected for the Personal Filter to be enabled.
     Selecting Informational deactivates the Personal Filter and the banner will only display information related to the detected email issue. The recipient will not be able to mark an email as safe, junk, or unsafe. 
   • The Skip Recipient Authentication feature is disabled. It is required that this feature is disabled for the Personal Filter to be enabled.

   

7. Select the Enable Mail Filtering check box.
   
   Note: The feature can be disabled by clearing the Enable Mail Filtering check box and clicking Save Changes at the bottom of the page. It may take up to 24 hours for the feature to be deactivated.
   
   

8. If desired, in the Mail Filtering Link Label field, edit the default text. When a user clicks this link in the email banner, future emails from this sender will be blocked.
   
   
   

9. Optionally, in the Mail Filtering Link Color field, change the color of the link in the banner. To see how your changes will appear, click the Preview Banner button.
   
   
10. At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes.
    
    
    

To manage the Personal Filter, refer to the article Managing the Personal Spam Filter.

Enable the Organization Filter

This section describes the steps Graphus MSP Admins must perform to enable the Organization Filter for an organization. The Organization Filter allows administrators to manage a list of senders to block at the organization level. This filter applies to all email recipients in the organization.

To enable the Organization Filter:

1. Log into the Graphus portal using your MSP admin credentials. 
2. On the Organizations page, click the applicable organization.
   
   
3. In the navigation menu, select Settings.
   
4. Scroll to the Organization Mail Filter section.
5. Click the Upload a list of blocked junk senders... toggle to enable it. The Import and Organization Filter buttons are enabled. 
   
   
   Note: The feature can be disabled by clicking the toggle and clicking Save Changes at the bottom of the page. It may take up to 24 hours for the feature to be deactivated. 
   
6. To upload a list of senders that should be blocked, go to step 7. To access the list of senders that have already been uploaded to the Organization Filter page, go to step 8. 
7. To upload a list of senders that should be blocked:
   a. Click the Import button.
   b. In the Leaving Page modal, click Proceed.
   
   c. In the Import Data modal, click the Download Template button.
   
   d. Open the template and in the Blocked Email Address column, enter each email address you want to block. Enter one email address per cell. Note: The limit for uploading organization-level spam filter entries is 100,000. 
   
   e. Save the template.
   f. In the Import Data modal, browse to, select, and open the saved template. Or, you can use the drag-and-drop feature.
   g. Click Import. Each imported sender email address is listed in the Organization Filter table.
   Note: After the import is done, Graphus will scan the list and remove any duplicates.
   
   
   
8. To access the list of senders that have already been uploaded to the Organization Filter page:
   a. Click the Organization Filter button.
   
   b. In the Leaving Page modal, click Proceed. The Organization Filter page is displayed.
    
   To manage the Organization Filter, refer to the article Managing the Personal Spam Filter.