Hāpara Filter: Rules and filtering Follow

In this article:

• Overview
• Rule hierarchy
• Creating rules
• Policy selections
• Add URL to blocked and allowed list
• Policy templates

Overview

The Hāpara Filter uses a policy manager to create rules that determine the web content that each person with the Hāpara Filter extension is permitted to access. The default rule will apply to everyone with the extension, but there are times that you may need to have more granular oversight of the sites that are filtered, whether that be blocked or allowed sites. This can also be determined by location, time of day, Google organizational unit or Google user account.

Rule hierarchy

• The default rule is the rule that will be duplicated whenever a new rule is created.
• The default rule is the rule that will be applied when all other rules fail to be applied. 
• The rule that is listed at the top of the "All Rules" section is the rule that will be applied first. If the first rule fails, the next applicable rule in the list will be applied. When all rules fail to apply, the default rule will take effect.
• To change the rule order, click on a rule and select the toggle/move arrow icon that will appear on the right side of the selected rule. The default rule's location cannot be toggled and will always be the last rule listed.
• If a rule is disabled, then the next rule (from the top of the list) that can match those OU's associated with the disabled one will be used.

Creating rules

Hāpara Filter allows administrators to create a rule that applies to the parent organizational units where all sub-OUs get the same rule automatically.

• To create a rule go to your Admin Console > Policy Manager.
• Click '+ Add New Rule' to create a new rule. This action copies the default rule as a starting point for the new rule you are creating.
• Scroll up to the top and enter a rule name. Choose your conditions for that rule. The rule can be applied based on location, organizational unit, user, IP range or time.

Policy selections

• Next, choose the policies to apply to that rule. The policies will tell the AI technology how to filter the browser session.  

By default, ads will be blocked for all users with the filter extension, unless you would like to allow ads for certain sites. In those cases, you can add the URL to the "Allow ads for these sites (e.g. for compatibility)" box.

Next, make your choices for blocking third-party tracking and Google search tracking. Under Content safety, you will see YouTube and Google, Yahoo, Bing safe mode. If you have these settings enabled in your Google Admin Console, turn them off here. Having it turned on in both your Google Admin Console and the Hāpara Filter Admin Console will cause a conflict. This will result in a constant redirect and asking for CAPTCHA verification. See the Hāpara Filter troubleshooting: Google search redirect or asking for Captcha verification support article in those situations.

If there are certain keywords you would like to block from being searched, enter them in the "Blocked Search Keywords" section of the policies.

Artificial intelligence allows the Hāpara Filter to analyze text, images and video in real-time. In the "Real-Time Analysis" section, a medium level is the default setting. The sensitivity can be adjusted according to the needs of your specific school community. 

Check the 'Filtering Categories' that your school needs to filter. If a category is not selected, then that category will not be filtered.

Add URLs to blocked and allowed lists

The blocked and allowed lists offer greater flexibility in adding exceptions to your policy. In addition to host and domain names, URLs are also accepted. Below are some examples: 

• The wildcard * is usually not necessary as we automatically match the webpages hosted under the hostname or URL. For instance, "www.example.com" would match every webpage on www.example.com. However, it won't match videos.example.com.
• "example.com" would match every webpage in the example.com domain, including www.example.com and videos.example.com.
• "example.com/foo" would match every sub-webpage of example.com/foo (e.g. example.com/foo/bar), including itself.
• "*" can be used in hostnames. Each * would match exactly a component in the hostname between the dots. For instance, "*.example.com" would match foo.example.com, but not foo.bar.example.com. 

Once you have made your rule choices, click "Save" at the bottom or upper right corner of the screen in the upper right-hand side to apply any changes made to a rule.

Policy templates

• Templates can be added to rules for special occasions when a user needs to allow or block certain categories or URLs. With the "Policy template" enabled the policy will override the rule.
• When creating a template, you can choose the categories to be filtered and add URLs to the blocked or allowed list.
• "Allowed list in rule can override blocked list of policy template" if that option is enabled.