Impulse Safe●Connect | Version 3 | Custom Messaging

Table of Contents


Introduction

The Custom Messaging Module allows administrators of the Safe●Connect Policy Gateway to exercise very broad control over the content presented to end-users. It does this in two main ways.

First of all, it provides administrators with the means to create and edit new Warning and Quarantine pages to support policies created with the Custom Policy Creator Module. Second, it allows control over the form and content of all the notification pages for the preconfigured policy modules such as Antivirus and OS Patches. This includes the ability to edit the Safe●Connect Policy Key download page and authentication page.

The interface is modular, providing as little or as much customization as desired. New pages can be built and deployed almost effortlessly, by simply editing the wording in preset templates. On the other hand, any page can be completely rewritten, using custom images, links, html tags, and Cacading Style Sheets (CSS).

Administrators can also create and edit html in an external editor such as Microsoft Front Page or Macromedia Dreamweaver, and then copy and paste it into the appropriate fields.

Accessing the Custom Messaging Module

From the Safe●Connect Policy Manager main window, click the button at the bottom right labelled “Custom Messaging”.


This will bring up the Custom Messaging Workspace.

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Create Your Own Pages

To create a new custom page set, click the button “Create New” in the top left corner. Alternately, you can select an existing page set from the dropdown and then click “Create a Copy”. This is a great way to save time if you are creating pages for several similar policies. It can also be very useful when you need to replicate very complex pages like the authentication login screen, or any other page with extensive html or remotely hosted images and CSS. Please see the “Advance Information” section for more info.




This will bring up the Name and Description Dialogue. Enter a unique name for this page set. It is a good idea to name it after policy that it applies to. So if you are creating a page set for the “Notepad” custom policy, you would name it “Notepad”. Or if this were a single new authentication page to be used only by Faculty and Staff, you could call it “Authentication – Faculty and Staff”.



There is also room for an optional page description. If you plan on editing or creating a large number of pages, this field can help you to keep track of their content and application.


When you are done naming and describing the new page set, click “OK” to return to the main workspace, where you will see the current page set displayed:



You can preview your page changes at any time by clicking either “Preview Warning Page” or “Preview Quarantine Page” at the bottom left side of the workspace.




The current page set has not yet been edited. Here is a preview of the default Warning page.



You could finish this page set by adding some simple wording to specify the policy it will apply to. This could be done via the “Main Policy Message” field, under the “Basic Message” radio button, as in the following example:



The resulting Warning page for this policy would look like this:



The settings above would yield the following Warning page:



If you would like to make the new Basic Message the default for all Safe●Connect policy notification pages, you can do so by clicking “Copy to All Pages”, to the right of the Basic Message text field:



You can also specify messaging based on whether the enforcement action for this policy is Warning or Quarantine.



Here is a Warning page with several changes in wording and in HTML. Note that any HTML tags you use will override the module’s default formatting.



And here is the much less customized interface for the Quarantine page.



If this level of customization is sufficient, you can save the page set by clicking “OK” in the main workspace. This will save the pages offline, in temporary memory, and return you to the Policy Manager’s main window. If you want to save the page set to the Safe●Connect Appliance, click “Upload Data”. Any page changes not uploaded in this way will be lost when you close the Policy Manager.

Once you are finished editing your new page set, you can apply it to a custom policy via the Custom Policy Module. For more information, see the Custom Policy Module help pages.

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Advanced Information

If you would like to make more extensive changes, you may do so from the “Advanced Information” interface. This will allow you to change or delete the header and footer images and stylsheet, as well as modifying the title bar and page width.



The images and stylesheet can be hosted on your Safe●Connect Appliance, or on a remote server of your choice. To change the target for these files, simply enter a fully qualified URL in the appropriate box.

Here is an example of a custom page set with remotely hosted masthead and CSS, a new title bar message, and no footer.



And here is what the page might look like to the end user.



Note: If you would like to host these resources remotely, please contact your Safe●Connect Customer Support Specialist for more details.

Also notice that, next to each of these fields, there is the button “Copy to All Pages”. Click this button if you would like to apply any of these settings to all notification pages served by the Safe●Connect Appliance.

Modify Existing Pages

The process of modifying pages for an existing policy is essentially identical to that of creating custom page sets. Simply select the existing page that you would like to modify and begin working.

When editing a pre-existing page set you are not required to use either the “Create New”, or the “Create a Copy” buttons. However we highly recommend that you do work from copies until you get familiar with the interface. This will allow you the freedom to experiment and test your results without worrying about the results being viewed by end-users.

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