Reporting spam to ExchangeDefender from Outlook 2007

As you know, I am a great fan of ExchangeDefender.   We are rolling this out to all of our current and new customers as the solution for antispam and antivirus in corporate email.  In my own opinion it beats Microsoft’s hosted solutions hands down for price point and features.

There has been one missing feature that has causes us some pain with users.   It seems that people really do not like forwarding any spam messages that get through the filters onto the team in ExchangeDefender so that they can improve their filters ongoing.   Even-though the amount of spam that gets through is minimal, and it is an easy task to forward to an email address, the main issue is that the original headers of the message are not sent to the ExchangeDefender team.

For this reason, I asked my mate Garren Bellew (from ASC Software) to write me some code to do this in an Outlook 2007 Macro.   In return, I would mention the fact that ASC Software do some excellent software development for the commercial workshop industry!

How to Install

First things first.   We need to allow Macro’s to run in Outlook 2007.   To do this, go to Tools, Macro’s, Security.

Select “No Security check for Macro’s”  Yeah…  we know it is a security risk!

The next thing to do is to exit outlook and install the Exchange Collaboration Data Objects which are available here, or on the Microsoft Website.

Now we need to create the Macro’s….

Open up Outlook, go to Tools, Macro, Macros….   You may already have Macro’s here… but you are to add a new one called ReportSpam, click Create.

On the next screen, paste and replace any code with this code.

Then, click on Tools, References, and make sure that the Microsoft CDO 1.21 Library is checked.

Now, click on File, Save VBAProject.OTM.   Then close the Visual Basic Editor window.

The last step is to create a button on your Toolbar for the user.  Right click on the toolbar, in an empty space, and select customize  <<<  Damn that Z!

   

Go to the Commands tab, down to Macros, and select Project1.ReportSpam and Drag it to your toolbar.

You can now right click on the button, change the text, or give it an Icon…  up to you….

Hopefully now you should be installed and working.   This really does need an installer, but maybe someone here or in ExchangeDefender will do that later.

Working?

To check it is working, select a message that is spam and click the new button.

You should see this:

If you click Yes, then you will see this:

All should work….    I hope

A known issue

The header information will not be attached to the message (it will be empty) if you are clicking on a Public folder in Exchange to report a message.    Something, I am told, to do with permissions.

Liability

If this does not work, breaks your PC, destroys your love life…   I do not care.   I am providing this information as free to use as you wish.   Try not to make a Nuclear weapon with it and all that other legal jargon….