Need a Fax to email solution for a medium sized company.

[Saajid]

Hey guys. I couldn't find a more appropriate fourm to post this in - sorry if it's not the right place.

I am looking for a fax to email solution for a client of mine. Currently, some of the employees are using "free" fax to email solutions, from the various providers.

Now the company is growing, and they have branches in Joburg, Cape Town and Durban, with about 35 office bound employees, and I was thinking that it is time to come up with a proper, unified, fax to email solution for the whole company.

Can you guys recommend something to me? Even if it means paying up a bit to get a good, easy to manage solution.

Or do you think they should just stick with the free fax to email solutions they are currently using?

Please assist. Thanks in advance!

[Roo!]

Try these guys, foneworx.co.za (http://www.foneworx.co.za), they have a full suite of solutions.

[diabolus]

Well if you're a business and probably have some sort of Telkom line, why not look at what Telkom offers

http://www.telkom.co.za/attheoffice/products/FAX2EMAIL/index.html

(I can't comment on how good it is or not, but if you're already paying Telkom rental, there's probably some cheaper options available)

EDIT: Looks like Telkom offers the service via these parners:



Contact information
Please contact the Service Providers directly:

Foneworx - Robert Russel
E-mail Address: support@foneworx.co.za
Tel:+27 (011) 293 0000

NGN Telecoms - Clair Alexander, Operations Manager
E-mail Address: vas_support@ngntelecoms.com
Tel:+27 (011) 201 7400

Vodacom - Tabisa Yoyo
Tel:+27 (011) 848-8415


So take your pick

[werner]

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[Saajid]

pls explain what you mean by fax to email, inbound? outbound? I have set up similar solutions recently for a travel operator, so may be able to help.

i.e. the user wants to fax/email xyz and have it xyz on the other side.

Well my original post is about employees receiving faxes, via email. So one way incoming fax to email, i.e. someone faxes you on those 086 numbers, and it gets routed to an email account as a PDF.

Outgoing faxes, using a PC to fax solution, or email to fax solution, is another option I am interested in, but is less pressing for now. But maybe I should just do everything in one go?

So yes, please assist on both incoming and outgoing....

Thanks!

[werner]

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[Saajid]

you can do all of that with win2k3 server and a faxmodem.

1) incoming faxes (per modem/phone line) can get routed to a single address, preferably a group dump like reception@example.com, this is soooo simple to do. Stick a few receptionists/sales people in this group, will come through as email with a tif attachment

2) outgoing faxes (once the fax printer setup in step 1 is shared) get sent via outlook/exchange, using a FAX: syntax.

3) you can also send a fax based on the contents of an email. I had a customer who wanted a fax sent to certain phone numbers based on the subject line which we set up.

All built into svr2k3 and exchange (they used exchange 2003, but if you are using sbs2003 then it becomes even simpler)

follow this article
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-5148992.html
and do as they say until the part about sending a fax. ignore them from there onwards.
now go to outlook on one of the client machines (once you have set up the shared fax printer) and add a new mail account, select "other" and you will see the fax transport service. install that.
now send an email, with the to: line as
[fax:84966111] and it will send that mail as a fax to 84966111

Thanks.. that sounds simple enough for sending faxes. Will have to go and dust off an old fax modem. I'm gonna test this out.

What about incoming faxes then? Does this mean that somebody will have to monitor this machine for incoming faxes?? Hmm.. I read something about routing it to email, or a shared folder??

[werner]

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[Saajid]

Thanks for your help Werner. Very useful information. Didn't know Windows Server had such nice capabilities built in.

[Mattress Master]

Roo: Maybe stupid question, but is Foneworx free?

[Hijax]

We use Rightfax at the office. Highly customizable, archives, mails, automates and any other sort of function you can think of. Was supplied to us by Galdon Data. They have great support as well. Check it out at www.captaris.com if you want.