Welcome to MailShield! When you first log into your account, you are greeted by the Dashboard. Think of this page as the command centre for your organisation's email security. It is designed to give you a clear, immediate picture of your email traffic and threat landscape without overwhelming you with technical jargon.
Here is a simple breakdown of everything you will see on your dashboard and what it all means.
1. Important Alerts and Notifications
Right at the top of your dashboard, you might occasionally see coloured alert banners. We put these here to ensure you never miss anything critical.
- Unverified Domains: If you have just added a new domain to MailShield but haven't updated your DNS (MX) records yet, a warning will appear here. MailShield cannot protect your emails until this step is completed.
- Billing Notifications: Friendly reminders if a payment fails or a subscription is approaching its limit.
2. The Quick Stats (7-Day Overview)
Just below the welcome message, you will see a row of four summary cards. To give you the most accurate picture, these numbers represent your traffic over the last 7 days, and the data synchronises automatically every 15 minutes.
- Total Processed: The absolute total number of emails that tried to reach your organisation. This includes both the good emails and the bad ones.
- Delivery Rate: The percentage of processed emails that were safe and successfully delivered to your team's inboxes.
- Spam Rate: The percentage of emails that our filters caught and blocked as junk, phishing, or unwanted bulk mail.
- Virus Rate: The percentage of emails that contained dangerous malware or malicious attachments.
Note: You will also see a handy indicator telling you exactly how many emails are currently sitting in your Quarantine waiting for review.
3. The Volume Trend Chart
This interactive bar chart visually maps out your email traffic over the past week. It helps you spot unusual spikes in activity at a glance.
Each day is broken down into colour-coded sections:
- Legitimate (Clean): Safe emails that went through normally.
- Spam: Junk emails that were blocked or held.
- Virus: Dangerous emails that were outright rejected.
If you ever see a massive, sudden spike in the 'Spam' or 'Virus' colours on a specific day, it usually means your organisation was targeted by a bulk phishing campaign—which MailShield successfully absorbed for you!
4. Most Active Spam Sources
Have you ever wondered who is sending you the most junk? This section lists the top 5 domains (e.g., dodgy-offers.com) that have been bombarding your network over the last 7 days. It shows you exactly how many emails we blocked from each sender, giving you a clear idea of where your biggest headaches are coming from.
5. Recent Quarantine Preview
Rather than forcing you to navigate to a different page just to check for a missing email, the dashboard shows a quick preview of your 5 most recently quarantined emails.
You will see the sender, the subject line, and the reason it was held (like a high spam score). If you spot a legitimate email in this short list, you can act on it quickly. To see everything else, simply head over to the main Quarantine page.
6. Recent Activity (Audit Log)
Security is all about visibility. The Recent Activity feed acts as a mini-history book for your account. It displays the latest actions taken by anyone in your organisation.
For example, if a colleague logs in, changes a spam policy, or releases an email from quarantine, it will be logged here with a timestamp. This ensures you always know exactly who did what, and when.
Need to dig deeper?
The Dashboard is just a summary. If you need to generate reports for your management team, dive into the Reports & Analytics tab on the left-hand menu. To manage held emails, click on Quarantine.
If you ever feel stuck, our support team is always just a message away!