What are the State options for Customer Package Policies and Rules?

This article applies to:

• MailMarshal SPE

Question:

• What are the State options for Customer Package Policies and Rules?
• How do I force a Customer Package Policy or Package Rule to be applied for all customers?

Information:

MailMarshal SPE Customer Packages provide flexibility for the Service Provider and customers. It is important to understand how changes in these items are enforced.

States and other options

When creating or editing a Customer Package Policy or Customer Package Rule in MailMarshal SPE, you can choose from three States. The States allow you to specify whether the Policy or Rule is available to customers and whether it will be applied for email processing by default.

• Enabled: The Policy or Rule is available for selection by customers. When a customer is first given access to an enabled item, by default it will be used for email processing.
• Disabled: The Policy or Rule is available for selection by customers. When a customer is first given access to a disabled item, by default it will not be used for email processing.
• Deactivated: The Policy or Rule does not apply to messages and it is not available for selection by customers. If you deactivate a Policy or Rule it will be deactivated for any customers currently using it.

• Whether a customer can disable (or enable) the Policy or Rule.
• Whether a customer can make user group exceptions to the Policy or Rule.

Changing the enabled state

As noted above, the Enabled or Disabled state of a Policy or Rule, shown in the Admin Console, sets the default option.

If you have given a customer access to disable a specific policy or rule and they have disabled it, setting the state to Enabled does not force the rule to be applied for that customer.

To disable a Customer Package Policy or Rule for all customers:

• Set the Policy or Rule State to Deactivated.

To force a new Customer Package Policy or Rule to be applied to email for all customers:

• When creating the Policy or Rule, and before giving access to customers, set the Policy or Rule State to Enabled. Ensure that you do not allow the customer to disable, or make exceptions to, the Policy or Rule.

To force an existing Customer Package Policy or Rule to be applied to email for all customers:

• Trustwave recommends that you make a copy of the Policy or Rule, and treat it as a new item.
  • This method avoids confusion and ensures that the rule will be applied continuously.
• It is also possible (but not recommended) to alter the existing item as follows: 
  • Change the State to Deactivated, wait for the changes to be reloaded to all arrays, then set the State to Enabled (ensuring that you do not allow the customer to disable, or make exceptions to, the Policy or Rule).
  • Note that there will be a time, while the State is Deactivated, during which the Policy or Rule will not be applied.
  • Customers may also be confused that their selection is changed without their action or knowledge.

To make a COPY (with changes) of an existing Customer Package Policy or Rule that is available but DISABLED for all customers:

• Warning: When you copy or duplicate a rule or policy, the copy inherits the current state of the existing item (enabled, disabled, or deactivated).
• If you want to "clone" an existing enabled item with changes, and make the new item available to customers disabled, you MUST manually create the new rule or policy. You cannot reliably achieve this result by using the "copy" or "duplicate" function.

Notes:

The above discussion applies only to the enabled or disabled state of a Policy or Rule. You can make changes to the content at any time (for instance the conditions or actions, or rules in a Policy). These changes will be applied at the next reload for any customer who has the Policy or Rule enabled.