Creating a lexical rule in simple mode

The simple mode for entering lexical rules enables you to set up a single action to take when a message matches a phrase from the list you specify. If you want to set up lexical rules to match against system or custom dictionaries, or want to include multiple actions depending on the number of phrases matched, see Creating a lexical rule in advanced mode.

Steps

  1. On the main Lexical Rules screen, click Add Simple Rule.
  2. Enter a name for the rule and a description if desired.
  3. In the Apply To field, enter the domain(s) or individual email address(es) or select the group to which this rule applies. Note that these must be domains or email addresses associated with your account: for an outbound rule, this would apply to senders, and for an inbound rule it would apply to recipients. If you do not enter any information in this field, the rule applies to everyone.
  4. Select the Exclude certain senders/recipients checkbox to specify domains, email addresses, or groups to exclude from the rule. The Excluded recipients and Excluded senders fields appear.

    In the exclude fields, enter any domains or individual email addresses, or select the group to be excluded from this rule. If you do not enter any exclusion information, nobody is excluded from the rule.

    Important:

    For inbound and outbound lexical rules, you can create a list that excludes certain senders and a list that excludes certain recipients. For example, you can specify that a lexical rule does not apply if an email is from xyz@externaldomain.com or is sent to xyz@internaldomain.com. In all exclusion lists, you can enter up to 65,535 characters, consisting of domains, addresses, or groups, separated by commas.

    If the service detects an email’s sender address is spoofed, lexical rule exclusions are not applied.

  5. In the Phrases field, enter one or more phrases for the rule to match against.
  6. Select an Action from the drop-down list. The following actions are available:
    • Quarantine the message. Optionally:
      • Elect to notify recipients, the postmaster, and/or others, with the selected notification messages.
      • Elect to give end users, in their Personal Email Subscription report, the option to view or release messages that trigger the rule.
    • Encrypt the message (optionally notify the sender and/or others). This option is only available for outbound lexical rules, and if you have the Email Security Encryption Module (see Advanced encryption).
    • Forward message to a specific address.
    • Tag the subject, deliver it, and send a blind carbon copy to another address.
    • Blind carbon copy the message to another address.
    • Tag the subject with a specified phrase and deliver the message.
    • Deliver the message without any tags and keep a copy for checking.
    Note: There is a quota for the number of messages that can be retained with the Keep Copy action. When you select Keep Copy or manage a lexical rule that uses Keep Copy, the used and available quota is displayed. If you exceed this quota, messages matching the Keep Copy criteria are logged in the Message Center, but you cannot read the message contents. To free space, delete some messages in the Message Center and then contact Support to have the lexical rule(s) using Keep Copy checked and re-enabled.
  7. Define whether the rule should match against the message headers, or the whole message body and subject.
  8. Click Submit.