Maximize the power of fax: how organizations can benefit from a native .NET browser-based solution

Communications News, March, 2004 by Tom Linhard

When Microsoft unveiled its .NET platform a few years back, there were naysayers who doubted its viability. Today, .NET-based applications are enabling IT departments to easily integrate disparate applications, reduce turnaround time and increase productivity. In fact, some IT pros are harnessing the power of .NET by targeting existing technologies, such as fax, and transforming them into business transaction tools that deliver necessary business documents at Internet speed.

A fax server offers the potential to deliver fax communications to every workstation and application in the organization. In seconds, users can send or retrieve a fax from their PC. Fax servers, due in part to the design, become a central repository for every fax transmission that enters or leaves the company, with the capability to search, retrieve or retransmit these business communications from a single source.

Faxes continue to drive many strategic business functions and processes. For legal purposes, many documents cannot be sent in electronic form via e-mail due to the requirements of legal signatures and confirmed delivery. Add the proliferation of spam e-mails and viruses into the mix and confirming delivery of the documents that move business becomes even more difficult. Legal documents, purchase orders, stock trade confirmations, airline/hotel bookings, insurance contracts, engineering drawings, blueprints, patient records and high-level federal information are just a few of the documents that are driven by fax communications.

Automation of this process is vital. Manually faxing documents is a function of yesteryear, and a waste of time and valuable resources. The fax server has evolved into a mission-critical component of the technology infrastructure.

E-mail can often replace a telephone call; however, with commerce applications, the inclination is to send a fax or request an order to be faxed. Fax messages travel over the most reliable and secure transport available--the telephone network. When was the last time a fax machine or fax server was down and out of service because of a computer virus?

The next generation of fax servers act as an enabler by transparently providing a means to fax-enable ERP, CRM, purchasing and other back-office applications. In addition, fax servers double as a legal archive of all incoming and outgoing correspondence.

One software-development company based in Copenhagen is implementing a fax-server solution for use with products such as Microsoft Visual Basic. This organization is leveraging the API programming possibilities both in .NET and .COM to connect with the fax server solution to obtain transaction IDs, send time, status and more.

In another instance, a Netherlands-based company needed to connect its in-house developed .NET software with a computer-based fax-server solution. On a regular basis, the company's in-house application can generate more than 3,000 faxes in a matter of minutes, and each one must be successfully and quickly sent to the final destination. This significant fax volume requires more than 100 fax lines and a seamless integration between the company's .NET-based application and another .NET-based fax application to provide fast, scalable and reliable delivery of fax transmissions. A next-generation fax solution offering a Web services design provides the scalability and fault tolerance required for mission-critical fax services.

A properly implemented fax-automation solution will enable an organization to streamline processes, improve workflow and ultimately reduce costs. The key to implementing a successful computer fax solution is to work with a company that understands the software application side, as well as the telephony side.

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Tom Linhard is the president of FaxCore, Centennial, Colo.