Filtering Parameters

In order to get the best filtering experience possible, a certain amount of personalization is required. To this end, the Filtering Parameters allows administrators to edit which emails should be blocked and which should pass through our filters.

This article applies to Administrator accounts - Quarantine Administrator accounts can view this information but cannot edit the parameters

You can manage filtering preferences for your organization under:
My Organization → Parameters → Inbound Filtering → Filtering Policy Groups → Filtering.

Please note that any changes made under the Parameters tab can take up to 5 minutes to take effect.

General Tab

The General sub-tab contains the broad filtering parameters which affect most of our filtering steps. It contains two sections: the Service Configuration section and the general "Allowed/Blocked Senders" lists.

Service Configuration

These settings control some basic filtering parameters.

"Allowed/Blocked Senders" lists

The best way to block undesirable messages is by reporting them to us (see Related Articles).

"Allowed/Blocked Senders" lists apply during the SMTP transaction. Some emails might use one address during the SMTP transaction yet show a completely different address as the Content-From (in the user inbox). This means that an action taken on a Content-From address might not yield results. Always make sure the entry added to the "Allowed/Blocked Senders" list is the address used in the SMTP transaction.

Entries can be made to expire by selecting an Expiry Date during creation. Entries are removed on the day following the Expiry Date.

In the event of a discrepancy, the "Allowed Senders" list have precedence over the "Blocked Senders" list.

Attachments Tab

The Banned Categories and the Banned Files Sender Exceptions are discussed in the Banned Files article (see Related Articles).

Authentication Tab

The authentication checks are the SPF, DKIM, and DMARC verifications.

Our filters will reject emails due to failed SPF and DMARC verifications. DKIM verifications are used in DMARC verifications and will not cause an email to be blocked on their own. For more details on a specific authentication technology, see the Related Articles.

Recipient Validation Tab

By default, our filters do not reject emails sent to invalid addresses on your server. Cumulus can be configured to do recipient validation by updating a list of all authorized addresses for your domains. There are two ways this can be done:

1. Manually uploading the list of all valid addresses using the Valid Recipients list.
2. Automatically uploading the list of all valid addresses using LDAP synchronization (see Related Articles) and activating Enable LDAP filtering.

Make sure that your user list is complete before enabling Recipient Validation. Failure to do so could lead to blocked emails.

Filtering Policy Groups

In Cumulus, the filtering parameters are applied not by domain but by Filtering Policy Group. All the domains in the same group will be assigned the same parameters. 

By default, all organizations have a single Filtering Policy Group which applies to all domains. If it is necessary to have different filtering parameters for different domains, a new Filtering Policy Group can be created by clicking the My Organization → Parameters → Inbound Filtering → Filtering Policy Groups → List tabs.

Normally, a Filtering Policy Group only applies to domains. If necessary, you can create a Filtering Policy Group that only applies to specific recipient addresses. This can be configured by clicking the My Organization → Parameters → Inbound Filtering → Filtering Policy Groups → Details tabs.