With most email to fax solutions, the end user is able to send an email to either faxnumber@domain.com (where domain.com is a custom fax domain) or to an Outlook business fax contact.  From the user perspective, they are creating the email, addressing it, adding notes to the subject and/or body, attaching the desired fax documents, and clicking ‘Send’.   With typical electronic fax solutions, the information on the fax sender and recipient, as well as the subject and body fields from the email, will be included on the cover page.  This allows for the use of cover page templates that can be used in a dynamic fashion rather than requiring the user to create a custom cover page each time they wish to send an email to fax.  The inclusion of the subject and body from the email accommodate the need to add instructions to the cover page so that the user is able to replicate the addition of manual notes with the email to fax process.

Looking at this process from the IT administrator’s point of view, the email is routed using a direct SMTP connector or forwarding rule that is pointed to the fax server.   This option is most common in environments with on-premise email servers that the administrator can easily configure with this custom rule.  Alternatively, as in environments with hosted email solutions, the email is routed by the mail server to the fax server or service using DNS as with any other outbound email.  Regardless of the method used to route the email, the electronic fax solution converts the email to fax for delivery across the phone network to the remote recipient.  Once the fax transmission completes, the fax solution should return an email to the sender to let them know whether their email to fax submission was successfully sent or that it failed to transmit.  Typically, the reason for the failure and an option to retry the fax will also be included.

The ability to send an email to fax also allows for easy integration with third party applications.  Many organizations are sending faxes through a business application such as an Enterprise Resource Planning ERP), invoicing, or accounting system.  With some of these applications, the email to fax workflow can be configured by the IT Administrator while others may require customization by the software vendor.  Whether sending faxes from their email client or through a business application, email to fax allows users to send faxes through an efficient process that bridges the gap between their desire to use email and their recipients desire to receive faxes.

Have a look at what GFI FaxMaker, our leading fax server software, can do for you; or just download a free trial and give it a spin!

While most companies have moved to email as their primary means of communication, many still rely heavily on the ability to receive faxes from their customers and business partners.  There are three main reasons why fax is still important for these organizations:

1. To obtain a phone line and a fax machine is still the simplest and least technical way for a small company to begin communicating with the outside world.
2. Many companies, especially those in the healthcare, legal, and insurance space, are required to transmit data via fax because of compliance concerns.
3. Companies are maintaining legacy applications, such as purchasing and billing systems, which are only able to transmit a document via fax.

With these things in mind, it is obvious that forcing your customers and partners to move completely from fax to email is not practical.

The answer to bridge the gap from fax to email is the implementation of an electronic faxing solution.  Whether implemented as an online service or a network fax server, these systems typically allow multiple options for delivering inbound faxes to the user via email.  The first consideration is the routing of inbound faxes.  While simple electronic fax systems provide the ability to deliver faxes to a single recipient for manual distribution, more advanced solutions provide dynamic routing options for automatic delivery.   For example, each user or department could be assigned a unique fax number for fax to email delivery directly to their mailbox.  This not only provides for a more efficient user experience, but also allows the organization to control the delivery of sensitive fax traffic and ensure that only the correct recipient views the information.  When compared with a traditional fax machine that would print the received fax where it could be viewed by anybody walking by, the fax to email process represents a significant enhancement to the organizations security practices.

From the end-user’s perspective, the ability to receive the fax as a PDF or TIF file offers two distinct advantages over standard fax machines.  In addition to working more productively with the delivery of fax to email rather than visiting the fax machine, they are also able to easily integrate faxing with their business workflows since the fax is already in an electronic format.

In part two, we will take a look at the fax to email flow in the opposite direction; email to fax.

Have a look at what GFI FaxMaker, our leading fax server software, can do for you; or just download a free trial and give it a spin!

Traditionally, fax servers have been implemented on a physical server using a modem or internal fax card to connect to analog or digital phone lines.   This is not desirable within organizations using VoIP as it requires the maintenance and cost of separate phone lines outside of the VoIP system.  The development of T.38 as a reliable protocol for converting the traditional fax traffic into Internet Protocol (IP) packets that T.38-capable VoIP systems understand, has allowed organizations to eliminate these extra phone lines.  The fax server is now able to communicate directly with the VoIP system through the Local Area Network (LAN), and the VoIP system is then able to convert the T.38 packets into the traditional analog or digital connections to the telephone provider. This not only allows for the elimination of the costs and maintenance associated with the separate phone lines, but it also allows for the central management of all the phone resources in the organization through the phone system.

The move to faxing through a VoIP environment also allows for several other benefits that are not quite as readily apparent, but can be as important.  Perhaps the most important of these is the ability to run the fax server on a virtual server using applications such as VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V.   Unlike traditional faxing that required a separate physical modem or card to act as the connection point, FoIP-enabled fax servers use a software module to communicate with the server’s Network Interface Card (NIC), which then connects to the VoIP system over the LAN.  This allows organizations to take advantage of the native options of virtualization to easily snapshot, clone, or restore servers in the event of a disaster.  With the physical component out of the picture, the all-software solution allows not only for virtualization, but also for other flexibility that is impossible with a traditional solution.  Chief among these are the ability to easily evaluate the solution through downloadable software and evaluation license keys, and scalability as it is simply a matter of adding licensing to expand.  Gone are the days of ensuring that the fax server has physical room for expansion, waiting for the new fax board to arrive, and bringing down production faxing to install the new board.

It is not unusual for organizations, especially SMBs, to want to take advantage of the benefits of a FoIP fax server, but they have not yet moved to a VoIP infrastructure.  All is not lost for these organizations!  There are inexpensive media gateway appliances that will take traditional analog or digital phone lines and convert them to T.38 for IP delivery to the fax server.  This is a popular transition path for organizations that want to take advantage of the virtualization, scalability, and flexibility options immediately, even if they do not plan to move to VoIP for some time.

Whether an organization is currently managing their phone needs through a VoIP system, is looking to move to VoIP in the near future, or is some way off from implementing VoIP, the benefits of moving to a FoIP-capable fax server are significant and available.