Adding an ethical walls policy

To add an ethical walls policy, follow the steps below:

1. Select the Auto Responder policies branch of the console tree.

2. Select the new policy option from the actions pane to launch the new Auto Responder policy wizard at the welcome page.

   The new policy option is also available using the right-click menu or from the toolbar. Alternatively, you can use the new policy scenarios section of the actions pane to select a specific policy type. If you start with a specific scenario, the welcome page is not displayed - go straight to step 5.

3. Click next to choose a scenario:

   

   Here, available scenarios (policy types) are listed - if you are not sure what type of policy best suits your needs, you can select a scenario from the feature list and view summary information for each one.

   If you started by choosing to create a specific scenario (via the actions pane), the choose a scenario page is not displayed - go straight to step 5.

4. Select the ethical walls scenario and click next to enter general information for the new policy:

   

5. Enter a meaningful name and description for the policy. For further information about this tab see the anatomy of a policy - general page of this help.

6. Click next to access affected parties options:

   

   Here, you specify two parties between which email communication will be blocked. Use the browse button to browse and select from user accounts and distribution groups.

   At this stage you must select affected parties from existing users and groups. Typically (though not always) ethical walls policies are defined to block communication between predefined groups. However, it is important to note that you can change / refine these settings once the policy is saved, using the conditions tab for the policy. Having completed the wizard, the conditions tab for that policy will show your chosen affected parties under the message is between condition. You can change these parties at any stage - for example, you might choose to define affected parties based upon  Active Directory attributes or recipient type (To or Cc), etc:

7. Click next to access notification options:

   

   Here, you can choose to notify the original sender and / or recipients and / or other parties when an email (between the two specified accounts) has been blocked.

   When choosing to add addresses you can type the required value directly into the associated field. Alternatively, you can use the browse button to browse the Active Directory and select a user account or distribution group, or use the arrow to select an Active Directory field from a drop-down list. Any fields that are associated with email messages, message sender, server and general details are available for selection.

8. Click next. If you have chosen to send one or more notifications (in the previous step), the notification template page is displayed:

   

   Here, you can browse all available templates and select the one that should be used for your notification message. If you can't find a template that meets your exact requirements, select any entry to complete the wizard. Later, you can use the template editor to create a more suitable template and then edit the policy to associate it with your new template. For further information about these options see the anatomy of a policy - template page of this help.

9. Click next to access subject options and specify what information to show in the subject line of the notification message:

   

   By default this field is set to use the original subject and prepend this text to it. Here, you can enter required text to show before the original subject (for example, RE:). If you simply want to use the original subject (without any prepended text), select the use the original subject option. Alternatively, you can specify a new subject line for the automatic reply. Select the use this subject option and enter any static text and/or use the arrow to select a field from a drop-down list. Any fields that are associated with email message, recipient, sender, dynamic content, server and general details are available for selection.

   For example, you might define a subject line which reads 'Re. your message sent to Joe Bloggs' where 'Joe Bloggs' is dynamically replaced with the original message recipient name. To achieve this, you would type: Re. your message sent to and then insert the message recipients field: For further information about these options see the anatomy of a policy - auto response page of this help.

10. Click next to confirm your selections and access the final page of the wizard.

11. Click finish to complete the process and add the new policy to the policies list.

    Remember that you can update conditions at any time, and also add exceptions or date range criteria, after the policy has been created. Also note that you must click the save button at the top of the Exclaimer console to save changes in Auto Responder. If you do not save changes (or if you use the cancel button) the new policy will not be retained when you exit from Auto Responder.