Mastering SpamExperts

Congratulations on becoming spam free! Spam Experts is quite easy to use and requires very little configuration needed to get started -- The default setting have been optimized for the best filtering performance. This article will help you to get the most out of your SpamExperts subscription.

Logging into the SpamExperts Control Panel

To login from WHMCS

Logging in via WHMCS gives the Admin the ability to view and change ALL settings, view the Quarantine, view Logs, and set the Whitelist and Blacklist, for the ENTIRE domain.

1) Log into your Client Area

2) Go to Services -> My Services.

3) Under My Services, find the SpamExperts item, and click the View Details button to the right.

4) Click the "Login to the Panel" button in the box below the details.

To login as the domain manager

Logging in via cPanel gives the Admin the ability to view and change ALL settings, view the Quarantine, view Logs, and set the Whitelist and Blacklist, for the ENTIRE domain.

To gain this level of access, log into your cPanel, and go to Email -> SpamExperts. Find the domain you wish to manage, and click on the Login to the right on that same line. You will be automatically logged in, and will be at the Dashboard page.

To login to an email account

This is the only way email users can login and view/set their individual spam filtering settings. Login at https://spamlogin.com/. The first time you visit, you will need to click "Retrieve log-in link". Enter your email address and click submit, and you will receive instructions for setting a personal password.

The setting below can be found within the SpamExperts Control Panel, after logging in

Automatic Discovery and Quarantine Reports (Domain Admin)

The first thing we suggest is enabling the Daily Spam Quarantine Reports for all recipients. This will discover all email addresses on your domain, and send each of your mailbox users a daily email, in either PDF or HTML format, of all email that has been quarantined. Users can check this email daily for any messages that should NOT have been blocked, and they can Release the emails for immediate delivery with a click of the mouse. There may also be an option to "Release and Train" some email message. This tells SpamExperts that the message is not spam, and that the mail filter should learn the characteristics of the message to let similar messages through in the future.

To enable the Daily Spam Quarantine Report for EVERY user, just click "Periodic User Report" from the left-side menu, then click "Enable" (see screen shot below). As the system starts to learn your active users, you can change the format (PDF or HTML). You could also add individual users by clicking the "Add a recipient" link, or by uploading a CSV file of email addresses by using the "Upload CSV File" link.

Managing Domain Aliases

If you have multiple parked domains, you can make use of the domain aliasing option. Domain aliases can be added to your main domain directly in the web interface. Any email sent to the domain alias will be delivered to the same user on the main domain.

Alias domains don’t have separate access to the control panel. Since all SMTP traffic to the domain alias is rewritten to the main domain, any changes/lookups on the main domain will simply include the alias domain traffic as if it was sent directly to the main domain. If you are searching for a specific email sent to a domain alias using the log search, the recipient will therefore show as user@maindomain

How to Change Quarantine Settings

SpamExperts does not recommend changing the default filter settings. The default settings are automatically tuned to provide optimal filtering.

The settings on the Filter settings page are, for the most part, self explanatory.

Quarantine Threshold: Score above which email is discarded
Unsure Notation Threshold: Score above which mail is Quarantined as spam
Sender Checks: Mail Validation Checks
Skip Maximum Line: There are limits to line length in mail RFC specifications. Skipping this check is not recommended.
Unsure Notation: String to append to the subject to indicate possible spam.
Quarantine Response: "Accepted" will send a bounce message. Rejected does not send a bounce message to the sender.

Manage Whitelists or Blacklists

When logged in as Domain Admin through cPanel, whitelist and blacklist entries will apply to all email users. When logged in as an email user, whiteist.blacklist will apply just to that user.

All Filtering checks are disabled for Whitelist recipients. We recommend to use the recipient Whitelist only for exceptional cases such as abuse@ or postmaster@ recipients

All filtering checks are disabled for whitelisted senders. We recommend only using the sender whitelist if the system would otherwise wrongly block email from a certain sender. Spammers often use fake senders matching the recipient domain, or domains the recipient may have received emails from before, to try and bypass the filtering in that way. In addition, if the system is generally wrongly blocking a sender, we recommend to "Release and Train" the message in the incoming quarantine to learn the characteristics of the message and allow such messages in the future.

All mail to blacklisted senders and recipients will be blocked.

How to check SpamExperts Logs

If you have Spam Experts filtering enabled, all email to your domain will route through the Spam Experts filter first, then sent to your inbox.. If you have not received an email that you were expecting to arrive, you can easily check the Spam Experts filter logs to see if the Spam Experts server received the message, and if so, what actions were taken with that email message. You can search the logs over the past 90 days, and apply multiple search modes and search criteria.

From the Spam Experts web interface, click on "Log Search" from the Incoming section on the menu bar.

Enter as much or as little information as you want, regarding the email you are attempting to locate. The easiest way to search is by date range. Once you have entered the search criteria, click the "Start Search" button.

This will show you how emails were handled, including any emails temporarily rejected (waiting for redelivery) and permanently rejected. Permanently rejected emails cannot be viewed or released. In the Log Search results, you will see a column entitled "Classification". The most common Classifications are: ACCEPTED: The email has passed the spam filter and has been delivered to the recipient's inbox.
TEMPORARILY REJECTED: The email was temporarily rejected. Legitimate mail servers that observe the RFC standards will re-deliver the message.
REJECTED: The email has been permanently rejected and can be found in the spam quarantine.

How to Manage Spam Quarantine List

The Spam quarantine interface shows all the incoming quarantined messages.

By default, Quarantined Incoming Mail is stored for 14 days, after which they are purged.

From the quarantine overview, you are able to view the messages and sort or search on specific criteria. The “From:” address us also displayed in the quarantine overview as the sender to resemble the results an email client would show. It’s also possible to mass release and mass delete messages here. Please note that releasing messages has effect on your filtering, so releasing spam/virus/phishing emails may have a negative impact on your filtering quality.

‘Release’ option will release the specific message from the quarantine and it will only deliver it to the intended recipient.
‘Release and Train’ will deliver the message to the recipient and train the message as ham into our filtering system. This option is recommended by SpamExperts when releasing the messages from Spam Quarantine so that the filters can be correctly adjusted.
‘Remove’ will delete the message from Spam Quarantine.

Spam Reporting Plugins for Email Clients

Apple OSX MailApp Plugin

https://my.spamexperts.com/kb/147/Mailapp-Report-Spam-Tool---Apple-OSX.html

Mozilla Thunderbird Plugin

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/expertspam/

Microsoft Outlook Plugin

https://my.spamexperts.com/kb/78/Outlook-Email-Addon.html