Re: Mail Rules

[Database Administrator]

No, the values are not case sensitive.

I suggest searching the Lotus Knowledge Base for "Rules", "Mail Rules" or
"Mailrules". There are a number of Technotes, mostly detailing the problems
with them. But they can give a lot of insight.

As you know, rules are created as individual documents. What is odd,
however, is that when you save (actually enable) a rule, it is translated
into a complex formula, and then is stored in the Calendar Profile document.
That is why you must disable the rule before you delete it - if you just
delete it, it does not get removed from the Calendar Profile, and then you
lose all ability to get at it with the normal interface. The reason it is
stored in the Calendar Profile is because it makes it very easy and
efficient for the Router to find the rules - they are all in one place.

Some of the Technotes mention how the rules are stored in the Calendar
Profile. You can use NotesPeek to look at (but not edit) the contents of
the Calendar Profile. There you'll see a field called $FileterCount and
several fields called $FilterFormula_0, $FilterFormula_1 etc. If you know
@Formula, you can see how the rule parameters are in the formula (and how
everything is forced lower cased, to answer your case question). References
to folders are not by folder name, but by the UNID of the folder. You can
probably already guess what will happen if you have a rule designed to move
to a folder called SPAM, and then accidentally delete the folder and
recreate it - the rule is broken, because the folder with the UNID it has no
longer exists.

Oh yeah. There is a flag in the database that gets enabled when the first
rule is invoked. This is what the Router looks for to know if it needs to
do any rule processing. Normally this flag is set properly. I've noticed,
however, that it will not get set if you create your rules in a local
replica. The rules will replicate to the server copy of the database (as
will the Calendar Profile) but they won't work until you create at least one
rule directly in the server copy of the database.

Fixing rules problems often requires writing LotusScript to disable all
rules, and then clear out the Calendar Profile.

As you can see, rules are somewhat less than robust. When they work , they
work well. When they break, you'll use language you never knew you had in
you.

Tim Mohrlänt - tmohrlant@NO_JUNK_MAIL_attbi.com
(remove NO_JUNK_MAIL_)


"Jan" wrote in message
news:6df7ca4f.0306250650.335b2c44@posting.google.c om...
> Are the values case sensitive? Do you know where I can find more
> information about the rules (other than the basic setup)?
>
> "Tim Mohrlänt" wrote in message
news:<_75Ka.11463$Ab2.24496@sccrnsc01>...
> > In R5, a single database may have up to 50 rules. I think I read the in
> > Notes 6 the limit is increased to 100.
> >
> > I don't believe wildcards work.
> >
> > Here is the biggest thing to remember when dealing with rules - never
delete
> > a rule without disabling it first. Due to the unusual (but efficient)
way
> > rules are handled in a Notes database, if you delete a rule while it is
> > enabled, it will stay enabled and the actions necessary to disable it
will
> > make you sick.
> >
> > Tim Mohrlänt - tmohrlant@NO_JUNK_MAIL_attbi.com
> > (remove NO_JUNK_MAIL_)
> >
> >
> > "Jan" wrote in message
> > news:6df7ca4f.0306241308.56401530@posting.google.c om...
> > > Sorry if this isn't the right place to ask this, but I need help with
> > > mail rules. Is there a limit to the number of rules you can have?
> > > Can you use wild cards (ex. %Rates%)?