Technology

Fax Server

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Fax over IP (FoIP) and Fax Servers – A True Green IT Fax Solution

Manual faxing is a very inefficient, costly and environmentally wasteful technology and as such is one of the most easily cost justifiable applications to convert into software – Fax servers are the original ‘Green’ technology for reducing the carbon footprint.

Centralised faxing

Voice over IP networks have brought centralised management and economy of scale to communications and it’s important these benefits be leveraged across other applications to save time, money and the environment.

Historically fax transmissions were difficult to send across VoIP networks, with a combination of compression, encryption and latency causing fax signals to be dropped. This is why faxing remained largely a manual process for people across internal networks, until the advent of Fax over IP (also memorably known as T.38). Turning those awkward analogue signals into a real time digital transmission means the time and date stamps, so necessary for faxed documents, remain.

Crucially, faxes sent to existing remote numbers across multiple sites, can now be routed to a centralised server instead of being printed out on paper.

So, where a fax server for each site was previously unfeasible, due to the cost and complexity, Fax over IP now delivers a single point of management, storage, and retrieval, and mirrors the disaster recovery and failover benefits of the VoIP network – A centralised fax service over VoIP networks produces massive cost savings, removing direct and indirect costs such as:

  • Fax Machines, often placed for convenience and underutilised
  • Paper, Toner, Electricity
  • Time spent printing and feeding the fax machine
  • Filing documents afterward, taking up space
  • Slower business cycles and customer service

The world’s leading fax solution

OpenText RightFax is the world’s most popular fax server, with the ability to completely replace manual based faxing with centralised, highly scalable and available electronic faxing. Sending faxes is as easy as printing, or sending an email, RightFax even provides automatically personalised coversheets, signatures, and library documents with billing codes. Paper hard copy can be scanned through directly interfaced Multi Function Devices directly into RightFax. There are no longer any excuses to leave manual faxing as it is.

ProcessFlows provides discovery assistance helping our customers collate the ‘Return on investment’ (ROI). It is a straightforward process of trying to locate machines and gauge traffic, and it is quickly apparent whether this will be of significant impact to the business.

Fax enable everything!

RightFax can fax enable any application on the network such as:

  • Microsoft Exchange (including 2010)
  • SharePoint
  • Lotus Notes
  • SAP
  • Oracle
  • Multi function devices (Xerox, Canon, HP, Konica Minolta)
  • And lots more applications

The ability to automate or semi-automate the faxing process provides immediate benefits and embedding fax in an existing application, such as SAP, enables users to simply ‘press a button’ to have a fax created, with form overlays and send instantly, whilst on the phone, for example. System based information like addresses and fax numbers are leveraged, and the audit trail of the line of business application itself can include the details of faxed documents.

Automation

Batched documents such as invoices, statements and purchase orders, can be automatically faxed or emailed, often overnight, taking advantage of unused time on the fax server. Savings over posted materials are huge.

Fax is also often the first and easiest step towards electronic document management. Receiving faxed documents is like having them pre-scanned. Because documents are then already an image, they can often be put through simple OCR or Intelligent Character Recognition (Forms) to start a workflow or business process, or reduce repetitive and unreliable data entry. OpenText have added OpenText Desktop Capture OCR to help organisations with their processes. Savings in this area are usually very significant.

Less training

Sending any document is as easy as printing, but rather than give users anything more substantial to learn, it is usual to make faxing as invisible a process as possible. By integrating with the Email platform, or SharePoint, sending a fax is just like sending an email using the email address book. And rather than burdening IT, users can check receipt and sending status and notifications from within Outlook or Notes. Incoming faxes are delivered as emails as images or PDF files, for speed, convenience and security.

Audit trails

Manual faxing is currently allowing information in and out of the organisation without any assurance of a record being kept. Lost or incomplete faxes are a serious waste of time, and quite possibly fine inducing. The fax server will maintain a complete database of all faxes in and out of your organisation, with associated audit trails. This searchable database means that regulatory standards are kept and help towards avoided costs.

The OpenText Alchemy archiving module provides for document retention policies.

Why Fax over IP? Why not email?

With nearly 200 million fax machines installed worldwide, businesses must have a fax strategy. Simply, facsimile technology is the preferred method for electronically transmitting an original hard copy document. Critical functional areas such as finance, legal, human resources, sales and procurement rely on fax to conduct their business. Demand for fax technology is not dependent upon the transport protocol rather it is driven by the business needs that fax technology fulfills.

Click here for more information on the market leading RightFax, FoIP and Network Fax solutions.

FoIP Hardware – What We Offer

Both the Brooktrout SR140 and TR1034 fax platforms support real-time Fax-over-IP, providing companies with the ability to integrate fax servers and fax document management solutions with their VoIP network. With Dialogic’s industry-leading fax technology, enterprises can achieve the same high levels of performance, reliability and scalability that they have come to expect over the past 20 years from their Brooktrout products while capturing the benefits of Fax over IP.

The Brooktrout TR1034 supports both TDM and VoIP networks, providing companies with a smooth migration path from TDM fax to IP fax. The TR1034 saves time by providing a single platform to support and maintain company wide, which can eliminate the hidden costs of maintaining multiple vendor platforms.

For companies looking for a pure software-based IP fax solution, we offer the Brooktrout SR140, a host-based fax-over-IP platform for companies that have transitioned their networks to VoIP.

The SR140 has the same renowned functionality that has made Dialogic the leading provider of intelligent fax boards, including our industry leading T.30 protocol, Error Correction Mode and MMR fax compression.

The SR140 is available in a variety of densities from two to 60 channels. To add channels as their needs grow, customers simply purchase and install a new software license key to instantly upgrade their solution. There is no hardware to buy, maintain or upgrade, ever.

Click here for more information on our Brooktrout Fax over IP products from Dialogic.

More information

Please use the menu above left  for more information. Alternatively you can call us on 01962 835053 or email sales@processflows.co.uk.