In many organizations, it is important to block users from adding certain types of files to InterAction. Files such as “vCards,” executable files (*.exe), and animated graphics are common in e-mail messages, but not useful in InterAction. Some of these files may carry viruses, and others just waste space on your servers.
To accommodate this need, you can create an “exclude list” of file types. Users are then prevented from adding files that match this list.
Although the ability to exclude certain file types from InterAction is useful, it is not a replacement for full virus protection products.
See the following topics:
- Using Wildcards to Identify Excluded File Types
- Examples of File Types to Exclude
- Edit the List of Excluded File Types
Using Wildcards to Identify Excluded File Types
To block a file type from InterAction, you need to provide enough information for InterAction to identify the file type. You do this by providing criteria. You can use any combination of wildcards and characters to define this criteria.
For example, if you wanted to exclude all executable files, you could create a very simple criteria like this:
*.exe
Some file types might require more complicated criteria. For example, some e-mail systems automatically attach text files to messages when they have problems converting certain data. These files are often named something like ATT00001.txt, or ATT000002.txt. To exclude these files, you would use this criteria:
ATT*.txt
This blocks all text files (files ending in *.txt) that begin with the letters ATT. It does not matter what characters are between the “ATT” part and the “.txt” in the filename.
Examples of File Types to Exclude
Some examples of file types that are not useful in InterAction include the following:
*.vcf (note that this one is provided out-of-the-box)
*.gif (and possibly other graphic formats, such as *.jpg or *.bmp)
You may want to exclude graphic formats like these to prevent icons or logos attached to e-mail messages from being added to InterAction as documents.
*.exe
*.mim
ATT*.txt
Edit the List of Excluded File Types
- On the main window of InterAction Administrator, double-click Activities, Appointments, and Document References in the entity list.
- Choose the Exclude List button.
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Add and remove the items on the list.
To Do This Add a file type to the list of excluded types Choose Add. Enter the criteria for the files to exclude, using wildcards as needed.
For examples, see Examples of File Types to Exclude.
Note that adding a file type to the list does not change any existing documents in InterAction. For details, see What Happens if I Change the List of Excluded File Types Later?
Edit an existing file type on the list. Select the file type and choose Edit. Make any changes, then choose OK. Remove a file type from the list of excluded types. Select the type to remove and choose Remove. When prompted, confirm the delete. -
When you are finished editing the list of excluded types, choose Close.
The changes take affect in InterAction immediately—no cache refresh is needed.
What Happens if I Change the List of Excluded File Types Later?
You can edit the list of excluded file types at any time. When you add a new file type to the list, InterAction does not check the existing documents against the new item. The list of excluded file types is only used when users attach new documents.
For example, assume you have rolled out the documents feature and it is now being used. Several users add zip files that had been attached to their e-mail messages. You decide you don’t want to allow zip files in the system anymore, so you create a new excluded type with the criteria *.zip.
At this point, users will be unable to add new zip files to InterAction. However the existing zip files that were added before you excluded zip files are not removed from InterAction.