Safeguarding Alerts not being sent or received

We are receiving some Safeguarding Alerts, but not when we expect

When Safeguarding Alerts are sent depends on whether they are sent from the On-Premise Appliance or Cloud Filter. See when Safeguarding Alerts are sent.

We are not receiving any Safeguarding Alerts

First, check you have a Decrypt and Inspect policy for Safeguarding. Without Decrypt and Inspect, Smoothwall can only analyse the Domain or URL, not the content on the page itself.

Next, check whether you are expecting to see Safeguarding Alerts generated from the On-Premise Appliance or Cloud Filter, as this will determine what you need to troubleshoot. See examples.

On-Premise Appliance

1. Check your SMTP setup, especially the sender email address.
2. Check your Safeguarding Alerts setup:
   
   • If the User/Groups field is set to a group rather than Everyone, check your User Groups have been set up correctly.
   • Check the Group or username in the User/Groups field is correct.
3. Check the Send notification / alert to email group field. If the right group is selected, check the Distribution Group has correct email addresses defined.
4. Check if there are Exclusions applied which may prevent a Safeguarding Alert.

Cloud Filter

1. Check your User Groups have been set up correctly.
   
   • Make sure you have Directory groups selected using the checkbox.
   • Check your Directories to make sure users are appearing in the correct Directory groups.

   Important

   Check for User Principal Name, as Aliases can’t be mapped to groups, and will appear in the Default Users group.

2. Check your Safeguarding Alerts setup, especially that there are email addresses added to the Contacts field, and that they are correct.

Issues with mail servers and inboxes

Junk or Spam folders

Safeguarding Alerts may be being sent, but caught in Junk or Spam folders. Ask staff to amend their spam filters, and add the sender email address to their safelist, so future Safeguarding Alerts appear in their Inbox.

Mail Server is rejecting alerts

If you have set up Safeguarding Alerts to be sent through an internal mail server, the mail server may reject attempts to send the emails.

If this happens, you will need to configure a full host and domain name by following these instructions:

1. Go to System > Preferences > Hostname.
2. Enter a Hostname.
3. Change the System identification method to Hostname.
4. Select Save changes.
5. Reboot the Smoothwall from System > Maintenance > Shutdown.