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The "Actions" Page
On this page, you define what you want to happen to messages when they pass through the content control system. You can add headers to the message (which can later be detected by your filtering rules), and you can also choose other actions such as moving the message to a folder, forwarding it to another address, or deleting it.
If a message has a weight greater than the activation weight
When a message has a weight higher than the activation weight, either because it appears in the blacklist, or because its calculated weight after rule processing exceeds your predetermined value, the action you select here will be taken on the message. Some actions have a parameter (for instance, when you select "forwarding", the parameter is the address to which the message should be forwarded).
The following actions are possible:
Take no further action
This action is useful if you want to turn off processing for a while, but still want the mail to be marked as "processed". This option is also useful if you only want standard headers added to messages as they pass through Content Control (see below for more information on adding standard headers) - you will typically select this case when you want to use filtering rules to handle such messages at a later stage.
Add an identifying header
If you select this action, Mercury will add an identifying header to the headers of the message but will not otherwise divert or alter the message. Whatever string you enter in the parameter field, Mercury will add as a header in the delivered message, completely unmodified (so, you must include the header keyword, the colon character, and the header body exactly as you want them to appear in the message). You can use this action as well as using the standard "graphical" and diagnostic headers (see below).
Copy the message to another address
Selecting this action will make a copy of the message and send the copy to the address you specify in the "parameter" field. The original message will not otherwise be diverted or altered in transit and will be delivered normally.
Forward the message then delete it
This action will divert the message to the address you specify in the "parameter" field. When you select Forward and delete, this action will cause all content control processing to terminate for the message, because it will be effectively removed from circulation.
Move the message to a directory as a file
This action diverts the message to a "quarantine directory". When you click the "Set" button, Mercury will prompt you to select a directory, which can be anywhere on the local machine or on your network. Mercury will move the message into this directory as a file and remove it from the queue so that no further processing or delivery occurs.
Delete the message
Just like it says - this action deletes the message, end of story. All content control processing ceases at this point, and the message is gone forever. We suggest you use this action with considerable care.
Header addition and advanced options
As well as taking the action you specify on the message, Mercury can add certain headers to mail to indicate the results of Content Control processing.
Add graphical X-UC-Weight headers for unacceptable mail
When this control is checked, Mercury will add a header called X-UC-Weight ("UC" stands for unacceptable content) to any message that has a weight greater than the activation weight for the set (see the Message tests page for more information on how the activation weight is calculated). The X-UC-Weight is graphical, in that it contains a little graph that indicates how unacceptable the message actually was. The graph consists of one to four hash characters, with the following meaning:
- [####] The message has been Blacklisted, or has a weight greater than 9990.
- [### ] The message's weight is more than three times greater than the activation weight for the set (in other words, it's a stinker).
- [## ] The message's weight is more than twice but less than three times the activation weight for the set.
- [# ] The message's weight is more than the activation weight for the set, but less than twice the activation weight.
After the graphic, the actual weight of the message is shown in brackets.
Add graphical X-AC-Weight headers for acceptable mail
It is possible to assign negative weights to a message during content control processing - in fact, this is what the whitelist does (it assigns a weight of -9999). If a message comes through the content control process with a negative weight, it is regarded as Acceptable - something important or desirable. If you have rules in place that have negative weights to promote the value of a message, you can instruct Mercury to add a header called X-AC-Weight ("AC" stands for acceptable content) to any messages that end up with a negative weight.
This can be a very handy way of highlighting messages with important content - you can use filtering rules later in the process to detect the X-AC-Weight header and take appropriate actions.
Like the X-UC-Weight header (see above), The X-AC-Weight header is graphical, in that it contains a little graph that indicates how acceptable the message actually was. The graph consists of one to four hash characters, with the same meanings as in the X-UC-Weight graph above, except that the values are negative: so,
[### ] would mean that the weight of the message is less than (3 * the activation weight * -1).
Similarly, [####] means that the message has been explicitly whitelisted, or has a value lower than -9990.
Add a diagnostic header showing which rules were matched
When this control is checked and a rule generates any non-zero value after Content Control processing, Mercury will insert a header called X-CC-Diagnostic into the message: this header contains a summary of the rules that triggered during processing, and is a useful way of working out why a message was given the weight it received. Each rule is written into the header in an abbreviated form, unless it has a Tag defined, in which case the tag is written into the header instead. For each rule written, the weight associated with that rule is shown in brackets as well.
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