HateSpam User’s Guide

What is the IHateSpam Software:

The North Allegheny School District has implemented a spam blocking software package called IHateSpam to significantly reduce the amount of spam email (offensive, annoying, foreign, etc.) that individual users in the District have been receiving through our email system.

Even though this software will substantially reduce the unwanted emails being sent to individual users in the District, there will still be occasions where some spam emails will make it past the software filtering and be delivered to an individual user account.  In this case, when the user opens Outlook in the Folder List * view, he or she will see a folder under the Sent Items folder named Spam (with a plus sign to the left of it) as shown in SCREENSHOT #1 below.

SCREENSHOT #1:

* To open the Folder List view in Outlook, click on the View menu item and click on the Folder List menu choice.

Please note that the user will not see this Spam folder until the first spam email is detected by the IHateSpam software.

When you click on the plus sign, the user will see three (3) subfolders displayed under the Spam folder as shown in SCREENSHOT #2 below:

SCREENSHOT #2:

How Do I Use the IHateSpam Software:

The three (3) subfolders are the Spam – Quarantine folder, the Spam – Blacklist folder, and the Spam – Whitelist folder.  Spam email will be primarily blocked at our email server.  General (and, the most widely distributed) spam emails like the German bank emails should never make it to an NA user account again.  However, some spam emails will be sent to individual user accounts because it cannot be determined at the server level whether an email is a spam email or not.  This spam email will always be sent to the Spam – Quarantine folder first.  Most of the time, the spam emails sent to the Spam – Quarantine folder will actually be unwanted emails that most of the District users do not want to receive.  However, there will be times when the spam email sent to the Spam – Quarantine folder will actually be email that a user may want to continue to receive.  To see the contents of the Spam – Quarantine folder, just click on the folder name from the Folder List view.  An example of a wanted email in the Spam – Quarantine folder is displayed in SCREENSHOT #3 shown below:

SCREENSHOT #3:

There are two (2) choices a user has when an email received in the Spam – Quarantine folder is from someone he or she wants to continue to receive email from.  First, the user can add the person or company’s name to the Outlook Contacts folder.  The Outlook Contacts folder is highlighted in SCREENSHOT #4 shown on the next page.  Click on the New button at the far left of the standard toolbar and fill in the New Contact dialog box appropriately.  Any email from anyone contained in the Outlook Contacts folder will always be delivered to the user’s Inbox folder.  Second, if a user wants to continue receiving the email in his or her Inbox folder but doesn’t want to add the sender to his or her Outlook Contacts list, the user can either drag the email to the Spam – Whitelist folder or right-click on the email and choose the Move to Folder… shortcut menu item to put the email into the Spam – Whitelist folder.  While this email remains in the Spam – Whitelist folder, subsequent emails from the sender will always be delivered to the user’s Inbox folder.

If, on the other hand, the email received in the Spam – Quarantine folder is an email that the user does not want to continue to receive, the user can either drag the email to the Spam – Blacklist folder or right-click on the email and choose the Move to Folder… shortcut menu item to put the email into the Spam – Blacklist folder.  While this email remains in the Spam – Blacklist folder, subsequent emails from the sender will never be delivered to the user’s Inbox folder.

SCREENSHOT #4:

Finally, it still could be possible for unwanted emails to make it to your Inbox folder.  Again, drag this email ( or move it) to your Spam – Blacklist folder, and the IHateSpam software will always block it as long as it remains in the Spam – Blacklist folder.

Quick Notes on Using IHateSpam:

1)      When you open Outlook to check your emails, regularly see if there is any email content in the Spam – Quarantine folder.

2)      Click on the Spam – Quarantine folder to review its email contents.

3)      If the email contained in the Spam – Quarantine folder is one the user wants to continue receiving in his or her Inbox folder, drag or move it to the Spam – Whitelist folder.  As long as the email remains in the Spam – Whitelist folder, the user will continue to receive these emails in his or her Inbox folder.

4)      If the email contained in the Spam – Quarantine folder is one the user does not want to continue receiving in his or her Inbox folder, drag or move it to the Spam – Blacklist folder.  As long as the email remains in the Spam – Blacklist folder, the user will never receive these emails in his or her Inbox folder.

5)      There will be occasions when an unwanted email will reach the user’s Inbox folder directly.  In this case, drag or move this email to the Spam – Blacklist folder.  As long as the email remains in the Spam – Blacklist folder, the user will never receive these emails in his or her Inbox folder.

6)      Administering your emails in this way will insure a dramatic reduction in the amount of unwanted spam email that the users in the North Allegheny School District will see.

Helpful Hints:

a)   If you want to magnify the document to see the screenshots more clearly, click on View in the Menu bar in Word, click on the Zoom… menu item, and then in the Zoom dialog box choose the 200% view.  Choose 100% to return to the original view.

b)   Please remember not to look at your emails in your Inbox folder or the Deleted Items folder with the Preview Pane activated.  You can get to the Preview Pane menu item from the View menu choice.  If you find it necessary to preview emails in the Inbox or the Deleted Items folder, it is better for you to use the AutoPreview selection.  This menu item selection is directly below the Preview Pane selection in the View menu.

c)   Since the IHateSpam software will be our primary anti-spam software, it will not be necessary for you to establish any Junk Email Rules through the Microsoft Outlook program.  If you have Rules set, you can remove them.  If you don’t have any set, you don’t need to worry about setting any up since the District has implemented the IHateSpam software package in our email system.

If you have any further questions or comments concerning the IHateSpam software, please feel free to email us at ##Help Desk.