Faxing manually is out of date.

Research shows that a professional fax server solution can save your organization substantial costs, while also improving your customer service and image.

LAN faxing has many benefits over cumbersome manual faxing. For example, with a fax server you can:

• Send faxes at the click of a button instead of having to print out every fax, carry it to the fax machine, wait for your turn, and possibly wait for it to retry when the number is busy.
• Store fax numbers centrally in one phonebook, eliminating the need to search for a fax number.
• Send faxes that are more legible and of better quality, since they are sent directly from your PC, using high-resolution techniques.
• Automatically route incoming faxes to the right recipient as soon as they are received. This ensures timely and secure delivery of documents.
• Track fax activity, by archiving faxes and using call accounting.
• Make sure that only you can view your outgoing and incoming faxes.
• Send faxes in the same way as you send email.
• Only check one mailbox for emails and faxes.
• Automatically retry fax numbers if they are busy.
• Easily send faxes to groups of people.
• Schedule faxes to be sent during cheaper off-peak times.

Which type of fax server?

There are many different fax server products on the market. Broadly, they can be divided into 2 different categories:

1. "Proprietary fax servers" - Fax servers that include their own client software & no or limited email integration.
2. "Email integrated fax servers" - Fax servers which are completely integrated with an email system and act as email to fax gateways.

Type 1: Independent fax servers

The first type of FAX server is applicable to companies that do not use email within the organization or do not wish to integrate fax with their email system. These fax servers use a proprietary communication system between the client software and the fax server. This communication system can be file based (using a shared file area) or it can be network protocol based.

A proprietary fax server can sometimes interface with a variety of email systems at client or server level. However, user administration is linked to the fax server user database. These systems can often interface with various email systems since their level of integration is low.

Recommendation: If your organization does not use email or does not require email to fax integration, one could consider this as a fax server. However the future lies in email integration.

Requirements: A shared file area, i.e. a networked drive to which each workstation has access.

Advantages:

• Does not require a mail server.

Disadvantages:

• Do not take full advantage of complete email integration.
• More difficult to install, due to integration with many different email systems.
• Network overhead due to proprietary communication system.
• Extra administration overhead, due to separate user database.
• Additional user administration.
• No least cost routing.
• Does not scale well.

Type 2: Email integrated fax servers

This type of Fax server integrates with a particular type of email system, for example, Microsoft Exchange Server or Lotus Notes. This kind of fax server leverages the email system to allow fax clients to send and receive faxes. User administration is linked with the email systems user administration and total cost of ownership is low due to elimination of training and little or no user administration.

Recommendation: This type of fax server is recommended in companies that use email and have a mail server.

Requirements: A mail server, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, Lotus Notes or an SMTP/POP3 server.

Advantages:

• Users do not need to learn a separate application to send and receive faxes.
• Users can check email and faxes from one program.
• Users do not need to switch to a separate program to send a fax.
• Administrators face fewer overheads because they do not need to administer a separate user database.
• Administrators receive less support requests from users.
• Because the fax server does not have a proprietary communication system, there is less network overhead and less cause for errors.
• Application integration through the mail 'Send' command in desktop packages is available.
• Easy to install as fax server is specifically designed for the mail server.
• Least cost routing is possible using the mail server.

Disadvantages:

• Users must be familiar with an email system beforehand.
• Some fax features are not available.
• The fax server that you choose must be designed specifically for the email system that you have chosen.

Examples: FAXmaker for Exchange and FAXmaker for Networks/SMTP