How to Allow or Block Individual Users in Safeguard Send for Microsoft 365
One of the challenges of deploying a company-wide Outlook add-in is that sometimes you need to make exceptions—without disrupting everyone else. Maybe a new employee isn’t ready for the add-in yet, or a specific user is experiencing a conflict with a new rule and you need to turn it off for them temporarily. The Allow or Block Users feature in Safeguard Send for Microsoft 365 solves exactly this problem by giving administrators precise, per-user control directly from the dashboard.
This guide walks you through how the feature works and how to use it.
Why This Feature Exists
Before this feature was introduced, the primary way to remove a user’s access to the add-in was through the Microsoft Admin Center—which is fine if you originally deployed to a handful of individuals. But if you deployed to a group or to Everyone in your organization, removing a single user from that deployment is cumbersome and often impractical. The Allow or Block Users feature sidesteps that problem entirely. From your dashboard, you can block a specific user in seconds, and the change takes effect immediately—no waiting for Microsoft’s typical 12–24 hour propagation delay.
Common use cases include:
Blocking a new employee from seeing warning prompts until they have completed security training
Temporarily disabling the add-in for a user who is experiencing a conflict with a rule change you are testing
Selectively enabling the add-in for a small group of pilot users while keeping it off for everyone else
An Important Note Before You Start
Blocked users still count as active users for billing purposes. When a user is blocked, the system is still delivering a rule to them—that rule simply instructs the add-in to stay quiet. Blocking a user does not free up a license seat. Additionally, this feature controls add-in behavior only; it has no bearing on email delivery or Microsoft 365 service availability.
Also note that the system-wide on/off status of the add-in is controlled from the main Home page of your dashboard. The Allow or Block Users page controls individual exceptions on top of that system-wide setting.
Understanding the Default Setting
[Placeholder: Screenshot of the “Users not in the list below default to: Allowed” toggle at the top of the Manage Allowed/Blocked Users page]
At the top of the Manage Allowed/Blocked Users page, you will see a setting labeled “Users not in the list below default to:” followed by a button that shows either Allowed or Blocked. This is the organization-wide default for any user who is not explicitly listed below it.
Out of the box, this default is set to Allowed, which means all users in your organization will see the Safeguard Send warning prompts unless you explicitly add them to the list and set them to Blocked.
If you want the opposite behavior—for example, you want the add-in to be inactive for everyone except a specific set of approved users—change the default to Blocked. Then add those approved users to the list individually and set their status to Allowed. Only those listed users will see the prompts; everyone else will be silently passed through.
How to Navigate to the Allow or Block Users Page
[Placeholder: Screenshot of the dashboard navigation showing where to find the Allow or Block Users page]
Log in to your Safeguard Send dashboard. From the main navigation, click on Subscriptions and then locate the Allow or Block Users option. The page is titled Manage Allowed/Blocked Users.
Adding a User to the List
[Screenshot reference: Allowed-Blocked-Users-Add-New-Users.jpg]
To add one or more users, use the Add New Users section near the top of the page. Type email addresses into the text box—you can enter one address per line, or separate multiple addresses with commas or semicolons. Once you have entered the addresses, select either Allowed or Blocked from the dropdown next to the text box, then click the Add button. All entered addresses will be added at once with the status you selected.
Changes take effect immediately. There is no need to save or publish—as soon as you click Add, the status is live.
Changing a User’s Status
[Screenshot reference: Allowed-Blocked-Users-Table-List.jpg]
All users you have added appear in the table at the bottom of the page. The table shows each email address along with its current Status, which can be toggled individually using the dropdown in the Status column. You can switch any user between Allowed and Blocked at any time, and again the change is immediate.
If you want to remove a user from the list entirely (returning them to whatever the organization-wide default is), click the red trash can icon in the Delete column next to their name.
Searching for a Specific User
[Screenshot reference: Allowed-Blocked-Users-Search.jpg]
If your organization has a long list of users, the Search for User field at the top of the page lets you quickly locate a specific address. Type part or all of an email address into the search box and click Search. The table will filter to show only matching entries, making it easy to find and adjust a specific user without scrolling through pages of results.
Navigating Longer Lists
If you have more users than can be displayed on a single page, use the Next and Prev buttons at the bottom of the table to page through them. You can also adjust how many entries appear at once using the Page Size dropdown in the lower right corner of the table.
Quick Reference
Default Allowed (no users in list): All users in your organization will see Safeguard Send prompts.
Default Blocked (no users in list): No users in your organization will see Safeguard Send prompts.
User in list set to Allowed: That specific user will see prompts, regardless of the default.
User in list set to Blocked: That specific user will not see prompts, regardless of the default.
Removing a user from the list: That user reverts to the organization-wide default.
Checking Your Add-in Version
[Screenshot reference: Version.jpg]
The Allow or Block Users feature is available starting with version 4.6 of Safeguard Send for Microsoft 365. You can confirm which version your add-in is running by looking at the version number displayed in the lower left corner of the warning prompt dialog. If you are running an older version, see the How to Update Your Version of Safeguard Send for Microsoft 365 article for instructions on getting the latest release.
Need Help?
If you have any questions or run into any issues with this feature, you can open a support ticket directly from your dashboard account. Our team is happy to walk you through the setup.