Fax Messaging Server

Product Monograph

(Printable Version, PDF Format)

Key Features

Synopsis

The Faximum Fax Messaging Server integrates your fax communications with your existing email server. FMS enables your users to send and receive faxes just as they would email. Outbound faxes are merely emailed to an address like:

1-604-926-8182@fax.your.com

Inbound faxes arrive as MIME messages with TIFF attachments (the international standard for Internet fax -- viewable and printable on almost any computer). This enables users to receive and print their faxes anywhere in the world where they can access their email

FMS is a product, not a fax service. You own the software, you own the server, you save the money! And with email/fax services charging $12 a month per user (not counting charges for every fax), it is easy to see how the Faximum Fax Messaging Server can pay for itself quickly.

Functionality

Receiving Faxes

FMS will take incoming faxes, convert them into MIME email messages with a TIFF-F attachment, and forward them to the appropriate user who will see his incoming faxes in the same inbox as his incoming email messages. Most desktop operating systems (including Microsoft Windows as well as Linux) include a fax viewer that can handle FMS fax messages.

This shows a received fax being viewed using Imaging for Windows.

Routing Faxes

The routing of incoming faxes can be automated using Direct-Inward-Dialling on analog phone lines or Called-Number-Identification on ISDN digital lines. With DID, you arrange with your phone company to have multiple phone numbers associated with your incoming FMS fax line. When a fax is sent to one of the phone numbers, it comes in on your FMS fax line along with a signal that tells FMS which user (or users) ought to receive the fax. No delays. No wasted staff time routing or delivering faxes. And no loss of privacy. Confidential faxes remain so.

This shows the FMS web interface displaying the first page of a received fax along with the pull-down list of registered users. By selecting the intended recipient from the list, FMS will email the fax directly to that user.

Smaller offices that may not need the flexibility of a DID or ISDN solution for automated fax routing can use either email or web routing. With FMS, any authorised user can use a web browser to view the first page of received faxes and quickly select the user the fax ought to be delivered to. Viewing faxes on a computer screen and selecting the recipient from a list is much faster than manually sorting and delivering faxes. So even on systems without automatic routing, incoming faxes can be handled much more efficiently than having someone empty the fax machine regularly or than having staff hover around the fax machine when expecting an incoming message. And because the fax is delivered by email, the recipient can be across the hall or across the continent.

Sending Faxes

To send a fax you merely send an email addressed to (for example):

Jane_Doe/Acme_Co./926-8182@fax.your.com

and FMS (i) creates a company cover sheet including corporate logo, (ii) converts your attachments to fax format, and (iii) delivers your message by fax over the phone line to any Group 3 fax machine. With FMS you can send faxes as easily as you send email -- and you can mix email and fax addresses for the same message! Indeed, you can even define a group in your email program that contains both email and fax recipients. No longer do you need to keep two distribution lists and use two programs to get messages to both email and fax addresses.

If you wish to send text messages by fax (with or without TIFF attachments) then no software need be installed on your desktop nor additional steps taken.

If, on the other hand, you want to fax Microsoft Word or other documents, you can install the Faximum FMS Print Driver and then "print to fax". This will cause the documented to be printed in fax format and then the following dialog box will appear.

This shows the FMS Windows Print Driver dialog box.

Once the user has entered the recipient information (possibly more than one and optionally by accessing the user's Outlook address book) he clicks on Send. This causes the user's email client to be launched with all of the addressing information transferred to the "To:" field and the Microsoft Word (or other printout) to be attached to the message, already converted to fax format.

The user then merely adds a subject line and cover sheet message and sends the fax.

This shows Microsoft Outlook Express after being launched by the FMS Print Driver, with subject line and coversheet message added by the user.

Administration

All significant aspects of the FMS server can be managed using a web browser which also makes remote administration not only possible but easy for non-technical staff.

This shows the main webadmin interface to FMS which permits all major administrative functions to be performed using a web browser.

Evaluation

Download a free 30-day evaluation copies of FMS from our website. Or if you prefer, try out FMS on one of our demonstration servers, see http://www.faximum.com/demo

Features/Benefits

faxes can be automatically routed to the correct user

• eliminates the cost and delay of manually delivering paper faxes
• eliminates the opportunity for others to read sensitive or confidential faxes

faxes appear in same inbox as email

• eliminates the need to switch between software packages to handle both faxes and email
• enables faxes to be filed electronically rather than physically
• makes it possible to forward email to fax recipients or to forward faxes to email recipients
• reduces need to print faxes on paper since they can be viewed on the screen

faxes can be picked up remotely

• enables users to receive faxes while out of the office
• eliminates need to forward faxes for travelling staff members
• enables telecommuters to handle their incoming faxes at home or at the office

messages can be sent conveniently to both fax and email recipients at the same time

• eliminates need to install, learn, or use separate software to send fax messages
• eliminates need for separate email and fax directories (phone books or aliases)
• increases user efficiency and saves staff time

fax traffic is handled by centralised fax server

• reduces need for multiple fax modems, fax phone lines, and fax software packages on desktop machines
• enables centralised cost control and management for fax traffic

all faxes need not be printed

• print faxes only as/when/if you need them
• save paper
• file important faxes electronically with your email
• blow away junk faxes with a click of the mouse!

Pricing

All pricing assumes software and documentation is downloaded by FTP. Technical support options are described at www.faximum.com/support/policy

FMS for Linux, Caldera (SCO) Open UNIX, OpenServer one fax line, ten users	$ 495
FMS for IBM AIX, HP-UX, Sun Solaris on SPARC one fax line, ten users	995
Additional users (25-pak, discounts after 400 users)	350
Additional fax lines (each, discounts after eight lines)	350

Requirements

Server Operating System

• Linux (Caldera OpenLinux, Red Hat, SuSE and others)

(Other UNIX/Linux ports in progress, please contact Faximum for details)

Client Operating System

• Microsoft Windows 95, 98, Me, NT 4, 2000
• Apple MacOS 8, 9 (third party component required)

Processor

• minimum 486/66 with 32Mb (this is capable of handling at least eight lines)

Disk Space

• 3.5 - 15Mb for FMS software (depending on O/S and options)
• 2 Mb for every 100 pages of faxes (approx.)

Email Server

• Caldera Volution Messaging Server
• SuSE eMail Server III
• any Internet email server (Linux, UNIX, or NT) capable of forwarding SMTP email (including CommuniGate Pro, Microsoft Exchange, Netscape Messaging Server, MMDF, PMDF, Postfix, Qmail, sendmail, and others)

The primary email server does not need to run on the same machine as FMS nor does the primary email server even need to be hosted on a Linux or UNIX system.

Fax Modem/Board

• recommended Class 2 or 2.0 analog or ISDN fax modem such as MultiTech MT2834ZDX, MT5634-V92, or ZyXEL (see http://www.faximum.com/modems for current list)
• Patton DataFire RAS (T1/E1 interface, up to 60 ports/board)

Email Client

• any Internet/MIME email client with TIFF-F viewer (Eudora, KMail, Netscape Communicator, Outlook, etc.)

Web Browser

• any HTML 3.2 compliant graphical web browser

Product Specifications

Message Attachment Types

• ASCII, TIFF-F
  (other documents such as MS Word etc. can be manually "printed to fax" on the desktop prior to attaching to email or automatically converted on the FMS server using optional Windows File Conversion Daemon)
• PostScript and PDF (using GhostScript)
• HTML (using optional software and GhostScript)

Fax Capacity

• upwards of 256 fax lines per server (additional licence fees apply, appropriate processing power required)
• upwards of four pages per minute per fax line (depending on capabilities of sending/receiving fax machine and complexity and resolution of document)

Automatic Fax Routing (requires FMS+PLUS option)

• DID (Direct Inward Dialling -- when used with MultiTech MT2834ZDX modem and DID-DTMF converter device)
• ISDN Called Number Identification (DDI) with ZyXEL 2834I Elite modem

Fax Standards Compliance

• Group 3 Fax (ITU T.4, T.6, T.30)
• Internet Fax (ITU T.37)

Access printable (PDF) Version

Access current version of this document at http://www.faximum.com/fms/monograph/

Faximum Software Inc., +1 604 925-3600, Fax: +1 604 926-8182
201 - 1571 Bellevue Avenue West Vancouver, BC Canada V7V 1A6
Email: sales@faximum.com