Atera's automated spam management system detects and marks spam tickets in your support queue, removing the need for manual deletion. You can set up ticket automation rules or manually mark tickets as needed to ensure that every spam ticket is handled properly.

This article describes Atera's spam management system, including manual ticket marking, spam filtering and viewing, and spam-based ticket automation rules.  

Note: Atera's automatic spam marking feature is enabled by default for all tickets in your default view. If you prefer to manually mark tickets as spam, you can easily turn off this feature by following the instructions outlined in the Manage automatic spam marking section of this article.

Manage automatic spam marking

1. From Admin (on the sidebar) > Accounts settings, go to the Tickets tab. 

2. Check the box under Manage Spam Tickets to enable or disable automatic spam marking on tickets. 
Note: Automatic spam marking is enabled by default. 

Manually mark tickets as spam

1. From Tickets (on the sidebar), select your ticket.

The Ticket page appears.

2. Click the Actions dropdown menu. Then click Mark as spam. 

The ticket will be marked with a spam label and it will be removed from your default view. 

Note: To unmark spam tickets and re-add them to your default view, click the Actions dropdown menu on the ticket and then click Remove ticket from spam. The label will be removed and the ticket will be re-added to your default view. 

View and filter spam tickets

We've created a shared 'Spam tickets' view, which allows everyone on your team to effortlessly access and review Open and Pending spam tickets. Alternatively, you can use the tickets filter to view and manage spam tickets. 
Note: The default view displays Open and Pending tickets that are not marked as spam. 

To access the shared 'Spam tickets' view:

From Tickets (on the sidebar), click the saved view dropdown menu. Scroll down and select the shared view called 'Spam tickets.'

In the 'Spam tickets' view, you can perform bulk actions like deleting selected tickets or assigning a technician. 

To filter spam tickets:

1. From Tickets (on the sidebar), click Filters.

The Filters appear. 

2. Select the relevant checkbox in the Spam dropdown menu to display Non-spam tickets or Spam tickets, or select both to see all tickets. 

Ticket automation rules based on spam tickets

Set up ticket automation rules in response to spam-marked tickets to save time and boost efficiency.

For example, one useful automation rule might be to add a custom status called 'Awaiting spam review' to any spam-marked ticket. This ensures that suspicious tickets are flagged for further review by a technician. We provide instructions for this use case in the following example. 

For example, one useful automation rule might be to add a custom status called 'Awaiting spam review' to any spam-marked tickets. This ensures that suspicious tickets are flagged for further review by a technician without negatively affecting SLA response times. We provide instructions for this use case in the following example. 

To set up ticket automation rules for spam tickets:

1. Create a custom ticket status (if you don't already have one set up) by following the instructions in this article. 

2. From Admin (on the sidebar), go to Support and ticketing > Ticket automation rules. 

The Ticket Automation Rules page appears.

3. Click Add New Rule.

The Add Rule window appears. 

4. Create your rule, then click Add.

• Rule name: Give your rule a name (e.g. Change status of spam tickets to 'Awaiting security review)
• Description: Enter a clear, concise description (e.g. Mark spam tickets as 'Awaiting security review' and assign technician from security team')
• Trigger: Select New Ticket Created
• Ignore flow: Select Yes to ensure the automation rule operates regardless of rule hierarchy and structure
• Active: Select Yes to activate the rule

5. The rule appears on the Ticket automation rules page. Click the rule name to manage the rule's Conditions and Actions. 

Add the following Condition:

• Ticket Property: Spam 
• Operator: Equals
• Expected Value: True
• Must Match: This determines whether or not the condition(s) must be met. 
  Note: Because there is only one condition specified for this rule, we do not need to check the box for Must Match. Learn more about setting conditions in ticket automation rules

Add the following Action:

• Action Type: Set Field Value
• Related Field/Email Template = Status
• Value: The name you gave your custom ticket status (e.g. 'Awaiting spam review')

That's it! Any ticket that is automatically marked as spam will now have its status changed to 'Awaiting spam review,' or whatever your custom status is called.
Note: Ticket automation rules can only be applied to tickets that were automatically marked as spam. See how to automatically mark tickets as spam

Blacklisting capabilities for spam tickets

To mitigate a high volume of spam tickets, you can block emails from specific users generating them.

To mitigate a high volume of spam tickets, there are a few blacklisting options available:

• You can limit ticket creation to main contacts only. This means a ticket will not be created if an email is sent by any other contact for that customer.
• You can block emails from specific contacts generating them.

To block emails from a specific user

To block emails from a specific contact

1. From Sites (on the sidebar), select your site. 

1. From Customers (on the sidebar), select your customer. 

2. Select the Users tab.

2. Select the Contacts tab.

3. Click the specific user you want to block. 

3. Click the specific contact you want to block. 

4. On the left-hand side of the page, under Block, toggle on Ignore emails from user.

4. On the left-hand side of the page, under Block, toggle on Ignore emails from contact.