Policies include several settings but mainly determine what categories of website a user can access and the allow and block list entries associated with the policy. A default policy is assigned to your account when your account is created and this is automatically assigned to all new locations, devices and users. However, you can also create your own custom policies. See Create a Custom Policy.

Once created, you can edit a custom policy to configure settings such as custom filtering levels and allowed & blocked lists.

Follow the steps below to edit a custom policy.

  1. Go to Content Filtering > Policies and select the policy you want to edit from the Policies table. Use the search box to quickly find a particular policy:

  2. When you select a policy, the policy page displays showing the Policy Details tab. You can also select Allowed & Blocked Domains, Notifications or Locations to move to those tabs:

  3. Policy Details:

    • Policy Name: The name of this custom policy.

    • Policy Description: A description of this custom policy.

  4. Filtering Options:

    • Safe Search: Safe Search filters out explicit or potentially offensive search results on Google, Bing and YouTube and helps avoid most adult content search results. Select Safe Search to enable.

    • Unclassified Traffic: Unclassified traffic is generally traffic from websites that are new and are not yet assigned to a category in the central web categories database. Select Allow Unclassified Traffic to enable.

  5. Content Filtering:

    Policies are configured to allow or block access to particular categories. A category is a list of websites that are grouped together based on their dominant content, for example, Education, Alcohol, or Finance.

    A custom policy allows you to select one of four content filtering levels (category groupings) - Essential, Enhanced, Optimum or Custom. Hover over Essential, Enhanced or Optimum to see the categories they include. See Category Descriptions for a description of each category.

    To create your own Custom content filtering level:

    • Select Customise and the Custom Content Filter window displays.

    • By default, the categories for the Optimum level are selected. Select the categories you want to include for your custom level.

      Note

      You must select or unselect at least one category in this window to save your custom content filtering level.

    • Click Save Changes.

  6. Allowed & Blocked Domains:

    Select the Allowed & Blocked Domains tabs to manage allow and block domains for a custom policy.

    • Allowed Domains: If you block access to a particular category, for example, Spyware and Malicious Sites, all websites within that category will be blocked. However, you can allow access to a website that is included in a blocked category by adding it as an Allowed Domain.

    • Blocked Domains: If you allow access to a category, for example, Art, all websites within that category will be allowed. However, you can block access to a website that is included in an allowed category by adding it as a Blocked Domain.

    See below to add a single allow or block domain. You can also bulk import domains, see Importing Domains.

    To add an allow or block domain:

    • Select Add Domain and choose to Allow a Domain or Block a Domain.

    • Complete the fields in the pop-up:

      • Domain: Enter the domain you want to allow or block.

      • Include subdomains: If your domain is example.com and you select this option, then all domains that end in example.com will also be allowed or blocked, e.g. support.example.com and products.example.com.

      • Log requests for reporting: Deselect to prevent requests from going to the logger for reporting.

      • Comments: Optional comments about this allow or block domain.

    • Click Apply.

  7. Notifications:

    You can specify a single email address to receive notifications when a website that is blocked by a policy is visited:

    • Select the Notifications tab.

    • Enter an email address.

    • Select the blocked categories you want to be notified about. For example, if you want to receive an email notification if a user attempts to access a website in the Spam category, select Spam. Only categories that are blocked by the policy appear for selection.

    • Click Save Changes.

  8. Locations:

    Select the Locations tab to view locations that are currently using this policy. To apply a policy to a location, go to Environment > Locations.

  9. Devices:

    If there are devices using this policy, a Devices tab displays and shows a list of those devices.