New spam filtering installed

Over the last month, we’ve been seeing too any spam messages coming through our spam filtering.  So we signed up for a 30 day trial of another solution to help us get a comparison against our current solution.  If we like the new system, we can purchase it… or if not, we can return it and continue shopping for a better solution.

The system was installed a few days ago and for the most part is letting through more spam – which was by design. We did not want to toss a new system in and find that parent emails couldn’t get through.  However, we are now at the time where we need to tighten up the system to make sure that spam is being caught as spam – while trying to get legit messages through.

For parents… There are no updates, steps or directions needed for parents – if you have any concerns or issues with getting messages through to a specific staff member, please contact me with the details and I’d be glad to help dig into it.  abelingb@wdmcs.org  and/or brian.abeling@gmail.com

For staff….

Q1. I thought we weren’t going to get daily spam summaries – but it now looks like we are?
A1.  This is correct, we were originally told that they company did not provide daily spam summaries, but we were able to find a feature that is very close to what we had before, so we’ve turned it on and are having daily summaries sent out at 6am.

Q2.  We’ve seen a A LOT of spam in the last few days, when will this end?
A2.  We are in the process now of tightening down the system – but we must also remember that the system will need time to “learn” our preferences as we mark/flag things as spam and not spam.

Q3. What happens if we tighten down the system and it’s still worse than the old system?
A3. When then go back to the old system, and would then continue to shop for other solutions.

Q4.  I’m getting a lot of messages in my inbox that are labeled  [SPAM?] in the subject line – what can I do about these? 
A4.  Your best option is to create an email rule for SPAM that will move [SPAM?] messages to your JunkMail folder – then you can review your JunkMail folder on your own to see if someone was accidentally caught.

Q5.  Any other tips/guidance that explain what options are available in the new system?
A5.  Yes, here’s a document explaining how to customize your preferences.

Had enough SPAM?

Had enough?

Had enough yet?

Since the start of school, our staff has seen a significant increase in incoming spam.  We’ve been following the recommendations from the company,  including various changes to the system and even updating to a newer version.  However, none of the suggestions are making things better, in fact, there seems to be more spam getting through since the upgrade.

A few weeks ago, we stated that if the problem wasn’t resolved, that we would shop for another solution – and that time has come.

We have a competitive product that we’d like to test out, but wanted to make sure that staff was aware that changing products will mean….

1) Staff will no longer receive the daily spam summary emails (none of the other competitors had this feature).  Instead, there is a website that you have to visit in order to see any messages that are blocked.

2) We will copy over as many of our existing preferences as we can – but its likely that shifting to a new product will likely allow more spam through for a short time period.  At least until we can adjust the system after its up and running.

3) Good news – the solution we will test allows each person to set their own preference relating to how much or how little spam you can tolerate.  This will be a welcomed addition, as each user tends to have a different tolerance level.

At this time, we have a competitive solution on-site and are working to configure it.  It will likely be later this week before we can put in place for testing.