Installation and first steps

  1. Close any Lotus Notes windows that are open.
  2. Run the msi-file. This will begin the installation process. Simply follow the on-screen instructions.
  3. Start Lotus Notes again.
  4. When the Spartacus Filter is started the first time it will churn through all the mail (except for mails in Trash folder). It then stores a list of the words used in mails. At this point, it's examining the contents of each email, and gathering data that will be used to analyze new mail when it arrives. This may take several minutes dependent on the number of mails found. After initializing (A message box will be displayed.) please move all previously identified spam mails using the "Delete Spam" menu or dragging them into the Spambox.
  5. The filter recognizes all mails outside the Spambox as real mails so your folders must not contain any spam mails if folder initialization was running!
  6. After installing, you'll see a new menu entry:
    Menu entry 'Delete Spam'
  7. You can use the "Delete Spam" menu to remove any spam mails you have already received. When you identify new spam, again use the "Delete Spam" menu to remove them. You can select multiple items and move them all at once if you want. The more spam you delete, the better Spartacus is at identifying it. The probability for detecting spam mails is more than 99%. Now you're ready to filter some spam! Whenever new mail is received, Spartacus checks each one and determines whether or not it's spam. If it's spam, it is automatically moved into the "Spambox" folder. Otherwise it remains in the Inbox.
  8. It's a good idea to periodically check the Spambox folder for real email that was misidentified. That's what a "false positive" is - a real email that is falsely identified as spam. Typically, Spartacus gets very few false positives, less than 0.1 %. Please move the mail back to the Inbox. The Filter then corrects its statistics.
  9. Please note Spartacus is processing each mail database where the ACL level is at least Editor (see menu File->Database->Access Control...). You might have e.g. Editor level access to another users mail database and don't want to control it by Spartacus. In this particular case we don't recommend to open this mail database with a Lotus Notes client where Spartacus is enabled unless you have restricted Spartacus access rights before.

Configuration and optimization

Spartacus shows some information as well as settings in its options dialog. Please find it at the menu Actions->Spam Filter Options...

There is a White List that will be used - your server and personal address book and contacts as well. This is pretty self-explanatory. Please note that Whitelist checking at Server Address Book can decrease the processing performance of the filter severely especially in large enterprise networks (up to 1 second extra per message)! Therefore it is turned off by default. We recommend to turn it on using Actions->Spam Filter Options....

If you want to increase the detection of small mails with a weblink you can turn on the follow-up of weblinks. The performance of processing might be slightly slower.

Spartacus writes a logfile for all spam removal actions. For more information see the Spam Filter Options dialog.