GroupWise comes with a very powerful system for managing your e-mail.  It allows you to create rules for how e-mail should be handled.  You can make rules to auto-reply while you are on vacation, automatically file e-mail from a specific person or mailing list into a folder, auto-delete junk e-mail (spam), etc.

In this tip, I am going to provide the steps for creating your own anti-spam rule. (One that auto-deletes unwanted junk e-mail.)  If you would like to create your own vacation auto-reply rule, please see these instructions on the Groupwise CoolSolutions website.

Although the rule we are going to create is for deleting spam, you should be able to follow these general steps for any type of rule you want to make.  

One word of warning before we start.  Be sure to try to test any rule you make!  You could end up doing something you don't actually intend to do, like deleting ALL mail you receive instead of just spam.  Of course it'll be there in the trash, but unless you test and check the trash, you may lose mail you don't want to.

Lets get going with our anti-spam rule:

1. First, select Tools then Rules from the menu on the main GroupWise screen.  Note: be sure you are in the main GroupWise window.  There is no "Rules" menu choice if you are in a window reading an e-mail or writing one.
   
2. The rules list will appear.  If this is the first rule for you, it will be blank like this example.
   
3. Click the New... button.  This will display a clean rule window like this one.
   
4. Next we need to name our Rule.  In the box next to Rule name: type a meaningful name for your new rule.
   
5. Then click on the Define Conditions... button.
   
6. This will display a window where you can set up your filters.  Filters are just rules that let GroupWise know which e-mail you want the rule to work with.  
7. In our case, we only want to act on e-mail From people who send us spam.  So, select From for the left box.  In the right box, type an e-mail address that sent you the spam. In our example, we'll use spammer@yahoo.com.
   
8. If you want to add more addresses, you can click on the button that says End and choose Or from the list that appears.  This will add another filter line to this window.
9. Since the people at pm0.net seem to specialize in sending junk mail, maybe we want to block everything that comes from them.  To do this, use just the part of the address starting at the @ sign instead of the whole address.
   
10. Now our filter will include any mail that has spammer@yahoo.com as the sender, or any e-mail sent that ends in @pm0.net.  That looks good so click the OK button.
11. Now we need to tell GroupWise what to actually do with these e-mail messages.  Click the Add Action button near the bottom of the window.  Then choose Delete/Decline... from the list that appears. (I'll tell you what each of the other choices does later on.)
    
12. Now you should have a rule that looks pretty much like this.
    
13. Click the Save button.  This will return you to the list of rules.
14. Make sure your new rule has a check in the checkbox to it's left then click the Close button.
    
15. If you get a lot of spam, it should not take long to know if your rule is working.  For the first few days you should probably keep an eye on your trash to make sure your new rule isn't trashing messages you don't intend for it to.

Hopefully this gives you a glimpse of what is possible with GroupWise rules.  You can also match on other things such as the message subject, date the message was sent (or received) and even the text of the message itself.  

I promised a quick explanation of the other actions possible with a rule, so here they are.