Fixing the Fax

If your business relies on receiving critical faxes, then simple planning is a must. Fortunately, simple inbound fax solutions exist to make continuing to receive fax communications a cost effective outage recovery component.

The first step is to understand how you are set up currently to receive faxes.  The two questions to ask are?.

1.   Is there a main fax number or more than one fax number that needs to be redirected?

2.   Is the fax machine using an analog telephone line or is the line running through the phone system?

The first thing to do is determine if the fax line can be forwarded.  This may mean you have to examine the features on the telephone line that is connected to the fax.  If it is an analog phone line not run through you telephone system, it needs to have call forwarding features to be able to re-direct the fax traffic to an alternative fax receiving location.  If your fax line is part of a digital package of service (T-1/PRI), there may need to be some changes to that set up to allow fax calls to be re-directed, as some digital dial tones do not allow for call re-direct.

Alternate Fax Receiving Options:

There are several options to consider when determining when to re-route the important faxes.  Two simple options include:

Often fax mailboxes are available from your telephone service provider and may even be included in the feature package already provided.  AT&T calls their service FaxMail and it can be ideal as an inexpensive stand by fax back up. Fax callers send the fax messages to a "mailbox" where it waits until you direct the fax to print to a fax machine or to a fax capable computer.

E-fax hosted services offer a different technology option where the fax is received at the hosting company?s server, converted to an e-mail file and forwarded to the recipient's e-mail box. Once received in you e-mail box, the fax can be forwarded or printed to saved as with any e-mail attachment.

If you would like help in planning this type of solution, please Click Here.