Introduction

This article tells you how to set up scan exclusions.

The Scan exclusion function in Acquia Web Governance lets Admin users configure custom exclusions to website scans. The configuration helps to target particular elements and prevent the contents from being flagged as issues.

Add exclusions to accessibility, readability, and misspelling checks on a customer level and then apply them to specific domains.

Scan exclusions use Regular Expressions (regexes). Regexes are application programming interfaces (APIs) that define string patterns. You can use a regex to search, manipulate, and edit a string in Java. For example, a regex can define the constraints for email validation and passwords.

Video walkthrough on scan exclusion setup

This video provides a walkthrough of the steps outlined in this document.

Navigation

Follow these steps to view current scan exclusions:

1. Log in to Web Governance.

2. Select the applicable domain.

3. Click Admin on the top menu bar.

4. Click Scan Exclusions on the left menu.

Scan Exclusions landing page

This section describes the Scan Exclusions dashboard. The page contains these elements:

• Tabs:

  Accessibility
  , Misspellings, Language Validation, and Readability.

• Add scan exclusion button.

Create a scan exclusion

You can create four types of scan exclusions:

• Accessibility

• Misspellings

• Language Validation

• Readability

The sections below give the steps for each type of scan exclusion.

Create an Accessibility scan exclusion

1. Log in to Web Governance.
2. Select the applicable domain. 
3. Click Admin on the top menu bar.
4. Click Add a scan exclusion.
5. In the Details section, provide the requested information:
   • Type: Select Accessibility.
   • Title: Provide a title for the exclusion.
   • Auto-apply to domains with CMS: Click the arrow and select a CMS.
   • Apply exclusion to domains: Click the arrow and type in a search phrase to find domains.
6. In the HTML exclusion section, provide the requested information to exclude an element based on name in the webpage source code:
   • Type: Click the arrow and select the type of HTML that best matches the scope of the exclusion:
     • Exact
     • Regex
     • Contains
   • Value: Enter or paste the source code snippet that you want to exclude. Find this in the source code for the page.
   • Checks: Click the arrow and select the accessibility checks that you want to exclude from the scan.
7. To add a new exclusion, click +Add exclusion.

Create a Misspellings scan exclusion

1. Log in to Web Governance.
2. Select the applicable domain. 
3. Click Admin on the top menu bar.
4. Click Add a scan exclusion.
5. In the Details section, provide the requested information:
   • Type: Select Misspellings.
   • Title: Provide a title for the exclusion.
   • Auto-apply to domains with CMS: Click the arrow and select a CMS.
   • Apply exclusion to domains: Click the arrow and type in a search phrase to find domains.
6. In the CSS selector exclusion section, provide the requested information to exclude an element based on its CSS selector tagname, class, ID, or attribute.
7. To add a new exclusion, click +Add exclusion.

Create a Language Validation scan exclusion

1. Log in to Web Governance.
2. Select the applicable domain.
3. Click Admin on the top menu bar.
4. Click Add a scan exclusion.
5. In the Details section, provide the requested information:
   • Type: Select Language Validation.
   • Title: Provide a title for the exclusion.
   • Auto-apply to domains with CMS: Click the arrow and select a CMS.
   • Apply exclusion to domains: Click the arrow and type in a search phrase to find domains.
6. In the CSS selector exclusion section, provide the requested information to exclude an element based on its CSS selector tagname, class, ID, or attribute.
7. To add a new exclusion, click +Add exclusion.

Create a Readability scan exclusion

1. Log in to Web Governance
2. Select the applicable domain.
3. Click Admin on the top menu bar.
4. Click Add a scan exclusion.
5. In the Details section, provide the requested information:
   • Type: Select Readability.
   • Title: Provide a title for the exclusion.
   • Auto-apply to domains with CMS: Click the arrow and select a CMS.
   • Apply exclusion to domains: Click the arrow and type in a search phrase to find domains.
6. In the CSS selector exclusion section, provide the requested information to exclude an element based on its CSS selector tagname, class, ID, or attribute.
7. To add a new exclusion, click +Add exclusion.

Edit a scan exclusion

1. Log in to Web Governance.

2. Select the applicable domain.

3. Click Admin on the top menu bar.

4. Click Scan Exclusions on the left menu.

5. Find the scan exclusion that you want to edit.

6. Click the Action icon (three vertical dots) on that row.

7. Click Edit.

8. Change the data as necessary.

9. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Delete a scan exclusion

1. Log in to Web Governance.

2. Select the applicable domain.

3. Click Admin on the top menu bar.

4. Click Scan Exclusions on the left menu.

5. Find the scan exclusion that you want to delete.

6. Click the Action icon (three vertical dots) on that row.

7. Click Delete.

8. Click Delete in the confirmation dialog.

9. Click Save at the bottom of the page.

10. Click Admin Settings (the gear icon) on the top menu bar.

    The system displays the Admin dashboard.

11. Click Add a Scan Exclusion in the Quick actions section.

Alternatively:

1. Click Configuration (the wrench icon) on the left menu bar.
2. Select Scan Exclusion from the expanded options.
3. Select the type of scan exclusion that you want to add:

• Accessibility
• Misspellings
• Readability

Accessibility scan exclusions

This section provides instructions on the fields that you need to complete to create an accessibility scan exclusion.

1. Title (required): Add a title that describes the exclusion.
2. Auto-apply to domains with CMS: Do one of the following:
   • Select None (default) if there is no CMS.
   • Scroll through the list and select the CMS that is used for your domain.
   • Notes

     • If a domain with the same selected CMS exists on the Web Governance account, the domain automatically inherits the exclusion.
     • If the CMS used for your domain is not present in the list, contact the Support team and ask them to investigate if it is possible to add it.
3. HTML Exclusion: Provide the following information to exclude elements based on their name in the web page source code:
   1. Type (required). Select from the available options:

Misspelled words scan exclusions

This section provides instructions on how to exclude a segment of a webpage from the spellcheck.

1. Title: Add a title that describes the exclusion (required).
2. Auto-apply to domains with CMS: Select the CMS that is used for your domain. Select None (default) if there is no CMS.

3. Apply exclusion to domains: Begin to type the name of the domain to populate the list and select one or more domains to apply this exclusion on.
4. CSS Selector Exclusion (required): Click in the field and select an existing CSS selector pattern from the drop-down menu, or click + to add a new one. Add as many as you need. Subsequent scans identify elements that match the entered CSS selector patterns and they are omitted from the results.
5. Click Save.
6. Add the updated script to the HTML code. For more information, visit How to add the script.

Readability scan exclusions

This section provides instructions on how to exclude a webpage from the Readability feature.

1. Title (required): Add a title that describes the exclusion.
2. Auto-apply to domains with CMS: Select the CMS that is used for your domain. Select None (default) if there is no CMS.
3. Apply exclusion to domains: Begin typing the name of the domain and select one or more domains to apply this exclusion on.
4. CSS Selector Exclusion (required): Click in the field and select an existing CSS selector pattern from the drop-down menu, or click + to add a new one. Add as many as you need. Subsequent scans identify elements that match the entered CSS selector patterns and they are omitted from the results.
5. Click Save.
6. Add the updated script to the HTML code. For more information, visit How to add the script.

Editing a scan exclusion

This section provides instructions on how to edit an existing scan exclusion.

1. Click Admin Settings (the gear icon) on the top menu bar.

   

   The system displays the Admin dashboard.

2. Click Configuration (the wrench icon) on the left menu bar.

3. Select Scan Exclusion from the expanded options.

   The system displays the list of existing scan exclusions.

4. On the same row as the scan exclusion that you want to edit, click the kebab menu and select Edit.
5. Make the changes as needed.
6. Save the changes.

Deleting a scan exclusion

This section provides instructions on how to delete a scan exclusion.

1. Click Admin Settings (the gear icon) on the top menu bar. 

   

   The system displays the Admin dashboard.

2. Click Configuration (the wrench icon) on the left menu bar.

3. Select Scan Exclusion from the expanded options.

   The system displays the list of existing scan exclusions.

4. Click the kebab menu on the same row as the scan exclusion that you want to delete and select Delete.

   The system displays a confirmation dialog box.

5. Click Delete in the dialog box to confirm. The system removes the scan exclusion from the list and from any domain that it was used on.

Additional resources

For more information, visit:

• Locate HTML Snippets to use in a Scan Exclusion
• CSS selectors by Mozilla
• CSS selector syntax by jsoup

How to create a scan exclusion

Data table: The table contains these columns:

• Title: Shows the name of the scan exclusion.

• Actions: Opens a menu with Edit and Delete options.

Data table: The table contains these columns:

• Title: Shows the name of the scan exclusion.

• Actions: Opens a menu with Edit and Delete options.