Spam and spam filtering FAQs

What is spam?

There are many definitions of spam on the Internet, but in layman’s terms, to spam is to flood mailboxes with many copies of the same message, in an attempt to force the message on people who would not otherwise choose to receive it.

How do we deal with spam?

There are two ways to deal with spam.  They should be used in conjunction with each other.

  1. Proactive:  Users can set their own preferences as to how the SpamFilter should deal with messages before the messages get delivered to their mailbox.
  2. Reactive:  This option will help users to manage spam in their GroupWise mailbox.

Proactive - using the SpamFilter

An advanced filter scans all the incoming messages, looking for spam "signatures". Each message gets assigned a score - the higher the score, the more likely the message is spam.  

Users can set a Threshold Score, and when an incoming message exceeds their Threshold Score, the filter can either:

  • Tag messages.  The email is delivered to the GroupWise mailbox, but the email is clearly tagged as spam.
  • Reject messages.  The email is not delivered to the GroupWise mailbox, but sent back to the sender with a "Message Undeliverable" status report.  Rejected messages can’t be retrieved, they are unrecoverable.

To setup your Threshold Score login to the SpamFilter using this instruction guide.

Reactive - manage spam in GroupWise

There are two ways to deal with unwanted messages in GroupWise.  The user can either:

  • Junk the sender:  The mail from the sender will be sent to a junk mail folder in GroupWise.
  • Block the sender:  The sender will be blocked and mail from that person will be sent to the trash folder in GroupWise.

To setup your Junk Mail handling in GroupWise use this instruction guide.