About Managing Filtering with a User Account

This document is a quick guide to filtering management for those who have a WebAdmin User Account and manage one group. The User Account is usually created for someone in authority over a Group, such as a teacher over a group of students or a supervisor over a work team. The group can be either large or small. Other Users, SysOps, or Admins may also be assigned to the group, but each User can only be assigned to one group. Therefore, some or all the Grade 7 teachers might be assigned WebAdmin User Accounts to manage the Grade 7 students.

Logging into the WebAdmin

1.    Use your browser to go to the WebAdmin login address given you by your service provider.

2.    Type your login name in the Login and Password.

3.    Click Login. The Dashboard displays.

Changing your password from the default

It is recommended that you should change My Account password from the default password that your service provider gave you to one of your choosing.

1.    In the WebAdmin go to My Account > Preferences and click the Password tab.

2.    Type the old or current password in the ‘Account Password’ field.

3.    Type the new password in the ‘New Password’ field.

4.    Type the new password again in the ‘New Password Again’ field.

5.    Click Submit. A message will display, confirming that your password has changed.

Category Alert: Reporting Incorrectly Categorized Website

Lenovo NetFilter categorizes Internet content and sites can be blocked based on this categorization. If you feel a URL is blocked in error, you can use the Category Alert function to alert Lenovo NetFilter of any concerns you might have.

Lenovo NetFilter’s review team will review your URL Alert and evaluate the authenticity of your claim.

Submitting a Category Alert

1.    In WebAdmin, click on Filtering Options > Category Alert. The ‘Category Alert’ page appears.

2.    Enter the URL with the http or http prefix and an optional comment and click Submit.

3.    You can also access the Category Alert option by clicking the Home link in the top-right corner of the window to go to the dashboard.

Blocking Categories for a Group

Your WebAdmin interface requires that you can only manage one group with one Deny List policy. In Deny List policies, the categories you select on the Categories page are blocked. If it were a Allow list policy, the selected categories would be allowed. The users in your group cannot access websites assigned to the categories you select for blocking. The users instead are redirected to a Deny Page or an alternate error message.

Blocking URL Categories

1.    Click Category Settings > Categories. This displays the Categories page, which lists all the currently available category templates. (This list may change over time, as the needs of our customers change.)

2.    You can select from the available templates. 

3.    You can also click Custom (if available) to displays the Category view.

4.    Use the Quick Add field to quickly add a Category or you can expand the folders to display the Categories.

5.    Select the checkbox beside a category name to block that URL category, or clear the checkbox beside a category name to allow that URL category.

6.    When you have finished making your selections, click Submit to save your selections.

Allowing access to a URL Assigned to a Blocked Category

To guarantee that your group can access a website that is blocked by your group’s Category filtering (as configured on the Categories page, you must add the website’s URL to your group’s Allow List. This creates an exception to the Category filtering.

Adding a URL to the Allow List

1.    Go to Category Settings > Allow List. This displays the ‘Allow List’ page.

2.    Click the Create button to open the 'Create Entry' window.

3.    Enter the URL and click Create.

4.    Type the URL for the website in the ‘New Allow URL/Keyword’ field, and then click the Add button at the right side of that field.

5.    The new URL will appear in the list at the bottom of the ‘Allow List’ page.

Blocking a Website Assigned to an Allowed Category

To block access to a website in a category to which your group members otherwise are allowed access (as you configured on the Categories page), you must add the website’s URL to the group’s Deny List. This creates an exception to the Category filtering.

Adding a URL to Your Group’s Deny List

1.    Go to Category Settings > Deny List. This displays the ‘Deny List’ page.

2.    Click the Create button to open the 'Create Entry' window.

3.    Enter the URL and click Create.

4.    The URL displays in the list.

Quick Reports for a Group

You can enable and disable Quick Reports using the Manage Reports button.  It displays the ‘Show Reports’ popup.   Each Report Template has one checkbox for each frequency. The Quick Report will be enabled immediately upon being selected and be scheduled for processing.

Quick Reports Delivery Options

A Settings button beside Manage Reports displays a popup which can be used to designate an email address for emailing the Reports and the format in which you would like the Reports emailed. Enter your email address in the Email Reports to: field. You can send the reports to multiple email address by separating each address with a comma (,) and no spaces.

When done, click the Save button to close the window.

Disabling Filtering

Depending on settings on the WebAdmin Settings page – to which you have no access—you may be able to quick disable or disable filtering under certain circumstances when one of your group’s users receives a Deny Page for attempting to access a blocked URL. Any user can quickly disable a URL, if a control for this purpose is allowed on a Deny Page; but only someone with a WebAdmin account can disable filtering otherwise. While filtering is disabled, Lenovo NetFilter still logs all browsing activity, even though users can access content usually intended for blocking.

The Master Admin can allow the disabling of filtering in one of three ways: 1) by IP address, 2) by client name, or 3) by group policy. Additionally, regardless of how filtering is disabled, the Master Admin can determine whether to implement disable filtering for all websites, by category, or by editing a URL. He or she also sets the maximum time for which the disable filtering is in effect. Additionally, he or she can allow a quick disable of filtering for a specified time period.

A Master Admin usually would only allow the less-restrictive quick disable for deny pages involving less harmful URL categories – such as those that might eat up system bandwidth but perhaps don’t have objectionable content. An example of this type might be the News category. A teacher may want students to view news videos as part of a research project, even though the overall system resources might generally require that user bandwidth be more restricted.

If you can disable or quick disable an individual Deny Page, you will see a button for that purpose on the Deny Page.

·       If you click a Quick Disable button, you have nothing further to do – Lenovo NetFilter will automatically redirect you to the requested page. The quick disable will remain in effect for as long as the master admin has configured the quick disable to last.

·       If you click a Disable Filtering button on a Deny Page, you will be prompted to log on to the WebAdmin with your login name and password. You may be asked to supply additional information as well before Lenovo NetFilter allows the user to access the blocked content.

Changing your WebAdmin Account Password

1.    Click My Account > Preferences and then select the Password tab.

2.    Type your current password in the Password field.

3.    Type the new password in the New Password field.

4.    Type the proposed new password again in the New Password Again field.

5.    Click Submit. A message will appear in the red message bar, confirming the password change.

If you forget your password, ask your service provider or administrator to reset the password.

Session Tab

This will allow you to change the session restore settings in WebAdmin. From this window you can select how specific session values can be restored.

Each Restore option can be set to Auto, Prompt or Manual or the Session Restore option can be disabled. 

If Auto is chosen, the Session Restore functionality will be performed automatically after logout.