Changes coming to ExchangeDefender SPAM Reporting
Over the past year you have seen us integrate our suite of communication applications under a single interface in the ExchangeDefender family. We’re making Exchange, ExchangeDefender Antispam, LocalCloud, Web File Sharing, Encryption, Compliance Archiving and Reporting, Web Filtering and even Shockey Monkey come under a single beautiful and seamless user interface. Our clients live inside of an interface that helps them communicate with each other, customers, vendors and outside partners and having bits and pieces of the functionality spread across many platforms is just not an optimal experience anymore.
On September 12th we will be unveiling changes to our reporting, unifying the control panels and creating a full seamless experience across all of our applications. We are extending the experience to the mobile and Outlook plugins so that you can get access to the same information no matter what sort of device or location you are in. It’s what we are working towards.
Email SPAM Quarantine Reports
To understand the necessary changes it’s important to note how ancient some of these ideas are:
When I originally designed email SPAM reports people didn’t live inside of Outlook. There were no iPads or iPhones and the smartest portable device was the 3com Palm Pilot V. Originally the only problem I had was making sure that technically inept people had a seamless way of seeing the junk mail that we quarantined.
We will first unveil the consolidated SPAM Quarantine reports. Email reports were the first technology that gave users insight into what ExchangeDefender was quarantining as SPAM but over time they have not been able to keep up with the more efficient, realtime, searchable and managed reporting we have available on our web site, Outlook plugins, desktop agents, mobile software and so on. While many have moved on from the legacy email reports platform, many have kept the old email reports running in parallel with the new software and for the most part those reports get ignored and just contribute to wasted space and bandwidth for the user.
We have changed the behavior and style of email reports to address this problem. If a user does not review their SPAM reports (doesn’t click on anything) for over 30 consecutive days, the mail reports will continue to flow but will not include the usual full quarantine message listing. They will instead be presented with a link to their ExchangeDefender web control panel where with one click they will have full access to the realtime SPAM data with the ability to read, respond and release messages, manage whitelists and settings.
But Vlad, my clients need access to this it’s the most important part of your solution!
I understand. The email reports are not going away for people that actually use them. But if they don’t use the email report to release a single message in more than 30 days… Let’s face it, they aren’t using them. And if they are only using them to look at stuff then the more optimal experience is through the Outlook Addin or the desktop agent. If we’re mistaken – go ahead and reenable their full reports – but if another 30 days goes without a single message release/whitelist, it will be reset to consolidated message.
We believe this change will address the complaints frequently raised by our clients and our partners about the wasted storage and mailbox resources that go towards SPAM reports that nobody opens. Even worse, users at times look at a SPAM report that is weeks old and attempt to locate SPAM messages that are long gone.
With the new SPAM reports they will have a convenient and quick way to access SPAM quarantines and settings. Furthermore, the system will automatically track their usage and adjust the SPAM reports from Full to Consolidated to make sure we aren’t slowing their experience down. Of course, if at any time the users feel they need more detailed access to the SPAM quarantines we urge our partners to install the Outlook addin or Windows Desktop addin or configure links to the control panel or HTML5 mobile app to give the user full and realtime control over their mail.
In October we will be beta testing native apps for ExchangeDefender as well so I hope we can continue to expand the solution portfolio to our clients both in a way that is meaningful and with the times.
Sincerely,
Vlad Mazek, MCSE
CEO, Own Web Now Corp
vlad@ownwebnow.com
