Creating web filter policies

Note: Each step must be completed to create the policy. If you skip a step, only a policy folder is created in which you can store policies.

Prerequisites

Make sure that you have added your local Smoothwall Filter user groups, see our help topic, Adding user groups.
You need to define the content that you want your policy to apply to. Make sure that you have done this in either a single category, see our help topic, Creating custom categories, or a category group, see our help topic, Creating category groups and adding categories.
If you want your policy to only apply at certain locations, you need to create a location policy object, see our help topic, Creating location objects.
If you want your policy to only apply at certain times in the day, you need to create a time slot policy object, see our help topic, Creating time slot objects.
If you want to limit a users access to content, you need to create a time quota policy object, see our help topic, Creating quota objects

Tips:

On the GUARDIAN menu, under the Web filter submenu click Policy wizard.
If you're creating a web filter policy in a multitenant configuration, from the Policy list, select the type of policy or which tenant the policy is for, otherwise, skip to the next step.
Under the Step 1: Who section, from the Available users or groups list, select the users and groups to whom the policy applies and click Add. When you've added all the users and groups, click Next to continue.
Under the Step 2: What section, from the Available categories or category groups list, select what is to be filtered and click Add. When you've selected all the content, click Next to continue.
Under the Step 3: Where section, from the Available locations list, select where the policy applies and click Add. When you've added the location(s), click Next to continue.
Under the Step 4: When section, from the Available time slots list, select when the policy applies and click Add. When you've added the time slot(s), click Next to continue.
Under the Step 5: Action section, select the action to perform for this policy or to create a folder instead of a policy.

Create a policy folder. If you're not sure what a policy folder is, see our help topic, About policy folders.
Block. If you're trying to block access to a specific app, you can see our knowledge base articles for more information, Policies to block specific apps.
Allow. If you're trying to allow access to a specific app, you can see our knowledge base articles for more information, Policies to allow specific apps.
Whitelist. If you're trying to allow access to a specific app, you can see our knowledge base articles for more information, Policies to allow specific apps.
Soft block. Choose this option if you want to allow your users to access content but they must confirm that they want to access it before continuing to the content.
Limit to quota. Choose this option if you want the Smoothwall Filter to check the quotas defined on the Quotas page and limit access to the requested content based on the quota object's settings.

Make sure that the policy is turned on by making sure that the Enable Policy option is selected. Once you are satisfied, click Confirm.
Review your selections and click Save to create the policy.

Place the policy in the order that you want it to be applied, see our help topic, Managing web filter policies.
You can also quickly allow or block location policy objects, see our help topic, Blocking or allowing web resources at certain locations from accessing web content.
If you want to exclude some of your devices from your filtering policies, you can create an exception, see our help topic, Exempting devices from web filtering.
To censor content and files from web forms, you can create a message censor policy, see our help topic, Creating and applying censor policies, and then you can turn it on, see our help topic, Censoring and storing web form content.