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Inbound Fax RoutingHow Inbound Fax Routing Can Help Reduce

Document Distribution Costs and Improve Productivity

QUADRANT SOFTWARE - [email protected] - 508-594-2700 - WWW.QUADRANTSOFTWARE.COM


How Inbound Fax Routing Can Help Reduce Document Distribution Costs and Improve Productivity

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IntroductionClaims, Collections, Contracts, Invoices, Licenses and Permits, Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, Work or Service Orders, and many more mission-critical documents are received on a daily basis by your fax machines. Someone has to collect these faxes, sort them, and distribute them. If you rely on fax machines to handle inbound fax transmissions of important business documents, you are familiar with the several problems this method poses, including but not limited to:

» Confi dential faxes are left at public places for others to see

» Faxes get lost in transition from the fax machine to people’s desks or inbox trays

» Documents are manually sorted and distributed and sometimes end up being sent to the wrong people

» When fax machines are down for maintenance, or if your machine runs out of paper, your business suff ers for not being able to receive faxes

» Vendors and customers are constantly having to call you to confi rm the receipt of their faxes

» Costs associated with fax machine maintenance escalate as your volume grows

» Wasted time and productivity sorting inbound faxed documents

If you are just starting out in your quest for a better way to handle the increasing volume of inbound faxes your company is dealing with or if you have FastFax and want to learn how to take advantage of its inbound routing capabilities, then this whitepaper will tell you both how to reduce your document distribution costs and save money by automating inbound faxing.

Inbound Fax Automation BasicsDiff erent documents require diff erent handling. A key benefi t of automating the receiving of faxes using an enterprise faxing solution such as FastFax is the capability to automatically route the inbound fax to diff erent destinations based on factors such as the originating fax machine or the receiving fax number, among others.

In addition to that, enterprise faxing and inbound fax automation allow you to take advantage of your email client, network folders, and printers in ways you never thought possible. A key component of reducing costs in document handling is being able to manage business documents by using the proper tools. So if you would rather receive faxes in your email inbox, why should you be picking them up as paper sheets from a fax machine?

FastFax takes advantage of a number of advanced features to enable you to receive your incoming faxes in a number of diff erent ways.

“In the past, the administrative staff spent 20-25% of their time distributing reports…Now these are automated through the Quadrant Software suite. This time can now be spent serving our customers.”

- Jayne Wood, Business Analyst



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The following diagram illustrates each destination option for inbound routing.

Fax Fax Server

Network Folder

E-Mail

Printer

FastFax Inbound Queues

IntelliChief ImagingDatabase

» Directly into your E-mail inbox (MS Exchange, Lotus Notes/Domino, Novell GroupWise, SMTP)

» Straight into FastFax Inbound Queues (Windows and System i (iSeries))

» To be printed on local or remote printers

» Saved in any folder anywhere on the network

» Captured directly into an imaging/archive solution, such as IntelliChief

Understanding the Benefi ts of Automated Inbound Fax RoutingWithout leaving your desk, you can receive and view your faxes directly via:

» FastFax iSeries screens

» FastFax PC Client/WindowFax

» E-Mail inbox

» Printer

» Archive folder

» IntelliChief Document Imaging screen

» Forward inbound faxes to co-workers via FastFax or your e-mail system

» Resend a received fax via FastFax as a fax or e-mail

» Eliminate faxes lost or misplaced at stand-alone fax machines

» Automatically send received fax confi rmation faxes to selected senders

» Improve security / confidentiality of inbound documents

» Eliminate the risk of losing documents



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Automating inbound fax routing signifi cantly reduces costs in the following areas:

» Reduce the number of stand-alone fax machines

» Reduce the number of telephone lines to support those fax machines

» Cut back on paper – print only the faxes you need on paper

» Automatically fi le copies of inbound faxes, eliminating the need for making photocopies or scanning documents to your network

» Tight integration with Document Imaging solutions, eliminating the need for fax machines, photocopies, and making inbound faxed documents available for retrieval

Calculating Return On Investment (ROI)To truly understand your costs of manual inbound faxing, take a look at the spreadsheet below. Ask yourself these same questions and plot the answers following this same format to get an accurate calculation of your current costs.

» How many faxes are received per document type per day?

» What is the average number of pages per document?

» What is the average time it takes for someone to sort and distribute each faxed document?

» How much is this time costing the company?

Armed with this total annual manual inbound faxing costs, you can now determine how much money your company can save by automating inbound faxing. Our experience shows that in general, such costs are reduced by 60 to 80%, and in some cases where there is a high volume of inbound faxing activity, cost savings reach upward to 95%!

Inbound Manual Fax Transmission Costs RFQ's Customer Orders Invoices Acknowledgements

How many faxes are received per document type per day? 50 60 30 30 What is the average number of pages per document? 3 3 2 1 Average number of fax pages received per day 150 180 60 30

Daily Inbound Faxing Costs (includes telephone costs and consumables) $15.00 $18.00 $6.00 $3.00Annual Inbound Faxing Transmission Costs $3,750 $4,500 $1,500 $750

Inbound Manual Fax Labor Costs

What is the average time (mins) it takes to sort and distribute each document type? 3 4 3 2

Total Time taken to collect, sort, distribute inbound faxes per day (mins) 150 240 75 60

Average fully burdened labor rate per hour $17.5 $17.5 $17.5 $17.5

Annual Inbound Labor Faxing Labor Costs $10,938 $17,500 $5,469 $4,375

Total Annual Inbound Faxing Costs $48,781

INBOUND FAXING COSTS

Need help fi guring out your costs or need to discuss your specifi c situation? Email our sales consultants for a detailed personalized ROI calculation at [email protected].



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The Technology Behind Inbound Fax RoutingThere are several technologies in place that give you the power of automatically routing incoming fax transmissions. Becoming familiar with each one will help you decide how to confi gure your enterprise fax system the way you need it to work. In this section we will explore how each technology can be used by your company to automate inbound fax delivery.

» Line Routing

» DTMF/DID Routing

» Manual Routing

» Direct Inward Dialing

» Dialed Number Identifi cation Service

» Automatic Number Identifi cation

» Transmitting Subscriber Identifi cation

Line RoutingLine Routing in Brief:Line routing allows you to assign a physical fax line to a user or group.

Line Routing Explained:If your offi ce had one fax line for each user or for each department or group, now you can continue using these individual lines but let FastFax route the incoming faxes to the user or department fax queue. You eliminate the need for manual fax machines and keep using the fax lines you already have, FastFax will take care of getting the fax to the right person.

DTMF/DID Routing DTMF in Brief:This allows for the caller to dial the fax number, wait until the call is answered and enter a number before sending the fax. The number the caller enters represents the recipient’s fax number or extension.

DTMF Routing Explained:DTMF stands for dual-tone multi-frequency and is usually used in combination with a voice modem and a PBX that supports DTMF/DID conversion. When the sender calls in, a tone is transmitted back to the caller telling him or her to enter the DTMF number, which could be a specifi c combination of number representing a user’s fax number or a group fax number. FastFax then recognizes the DTMF number entered and uses it to identify the recipient of the fax, routing it to the appropriate fax queue.

Manual Routing Manual Routing in Brief:Enables a central user or multiple users to receive incoming faxes, determine their recipient, and electronically route them to the appropriate person.

Manual Routing Explained:Manual routing replaces the manual process of collecting faxes from a fax machine, sorting through them and manually placing each fax into a user’s inbox tray. With FastFax you can determine a user or multiple users to be the central point for receiving inbound faxes. The user can then view the cover page (and restrictions can be in place so that the cover page is the only page allowed to be viewed) and identify the correct recipient, forwarding the fax to the appropriate person’s FastFax queue or, if EmailGateways is being used, the fax can also be sent to the person’s email inbox.



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Direct Inward Dialing (DID) - AnalogDID In Brief: DID is a service you request from the phone company so that you can assign unique lines or extensions to departments and individuals. This allows vendors and customers to send faxes directly to that specifi c “extension” number in your company ensuring the right person gets the fax.

DID Explained:When purchasing DID line service, the phone company assigns multiple phone numbers in numerical order to one or more DID trunk lines, a single physical phone line that supports multiple phone numbers. When a phone call or fax comes into the Private Branch Exchange (PBX) via a DID line, the telephone company’s central offi ce signals the phone number digits of the call dialed to the PBX.

Using the FastFax server on a DID line, the fax board detects those signals and passes the digits along to the fax application software to route the fax once it is received. This operation cross-references the sender’s fax number against a table residing in FastFax to determine which user should receive the inbound fax.

In essence, the FastFax card and software work together to pass the inbound fax to the line number on which it was received, match the line number with the assigned user, and route the fax to that user. If the user accesses the received fax through FastFax, they will see it in their inbound fax message queue. If an Email Gateway is being utilized, the inbound fax will be sent directly to the email inbox.

Example:Sales uses the number 508-594-2700 while Customer Service may use 508-594-2722 and Accounts Payable may use 508-594-2733. As faxes are sent to each specifi c number, FastFax will know how to automatically route the incoming documents ensuring each department gets the correct fax in their inbound fax queue or directly into their email inbox.

Fax Sent

Sent to: 508-828-... DID: 62426242: Sales

DID: 6150

8145: Accounting

DID: 71237123: Customer Service

DID: 8145 FastFaxServer

Dialed Number Identifi cation Service (DNIS) - DigitalDNIS in Brief:Virtually the same as DID, this is the digital version that works with digital T1 lines. This option is becoming more widespread as costs for T1 lines decrease while businesses start using more T1 lines for both voice and data communication.

DNIS Explained:DID routing applies to both analog and digital (T1) lines; however, while it is referred to as DID in the analog world, it is usually referred to as DNIS when using digital T1 lines. The concept is virtually the same as DID, but it also functions on all forms of digital service, including E1 and T1.

The service multiplexes 24 digitized voice channels over a single circuit, which allows FastFax to manage inbound and outbound faxing without adding fax cards to the FastFax server. For inbound fax routing using DNIS, FastFax uses a process similar to routing on Analog DID. The benefi t of T1 line service over DID is the easy management of the two-way fax traffi c entering and leaving your environment from user desktops.

T1 lines are typically used for high-capacity fax servers consisting of at least eight ports or more, or fax servers that sit behind PBXs that can provide T1 line service but not Analog DID line service.



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Automatic Number Identifi cation (ANI)ANI in Brief:Also referred to as “caller ID”, ANI is simply the identifi cation of the dialing party, the origin of the incoming fax transmission. By identifying the origin of the fax, you can sometimes infer the content of the document or apply business rules such as territories being handled by diff erent account managers or divisions.

ANI Explained:Where DID and DNIS identify the destination fax number that was dialed by the sender, ANI identifi es the phone number doing the dialing (Caller ID). Through ANI, FastFax can pinpoint the sender and provide more specifi c delivery/routing options for any incoming fax.

With ANI routing, the FastFax fax card identifi es the sender’s fax number and passes that number in the FastFax software. At the same time, the software determines the routing based on the DNIS digits and then routes it based on the ANI digits. Using ANI, rules can be created to route faxes according to the area code, the area code plus the telephone exchange number (the fi rst three digits in a phone number, excluding the area code), or the entire phone number.

For example, if you receive orders from many sources but have a group of very important and highly valued customers, FastFax can forward those important customers’ faxes to a Senior Order-Processing Clerk using ANI confi gured to recognize the sender’s entire phone number. Also, if a specifi c person or team handles orders from particular states or territories, ANI can be used to forward all transmission from one or several area codes to a targeted destination. Meanwhile, other department members handle the rest of the faxes normally.

This method ensures that faxes are handled based on the sender’s importance, eliminating manual distribution. ANI routing is only available with T1 ISDN/PRI installations.

Fax SentFastFaxServer

Fax sent from508-828-6222

Routing TableEast Team

Central Team

West Team

Transmitting Subscriber Identifi cation (TSI)TSI in Brief:The TSI is a string that identifi es where the fax is coming from. You usually see a company name at the top of fax pages as the identifi er. This string can be setup at the fax machine or if you are using a fax system such as FastFax, it can be easily confi gured to be used for your outbound faxes. Much like ANI described earlier, FastFax can route incoming faxes based on the TSI information following your pre-set rules about how the document should be routed.

TSI Explained:The Transmitting Subscriber Identifi cation (TSI or TSID) is a string that identifi es the sender of a fax, and is sent by the fax machine. This identifi cation information typically appears at the top of the page (header section) to help the recipient determine where the fax originates from. This string is usually a combination of the fax or telephone number and the name of the sender and is also referred to as the Called Subscriber Identifi cation (CSID).

Fax SentFastFaxServer

Routing TableAccounting

Customer Service

Sales

TSI



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Confi guring FastFax for Effi cient Inbound RoutingDID/DNIS routing enables the FastFax server to deliver inbound faxes directly to the intended recipient based on the phone number that has been pre-assigned to a specifi c user or department. DID/DNIS includes fl exible and user-friendly features that provide for an almost maintenance free approach to inbound fax routing.

By setting up a unique fax number for each necessary employee or department, you can ensure that faxes will be delivered directly to the specifi ed person’s desktop instead of dealing with the risk of the documents being physically printed and transferred throughout the offi ce. Users will receive the fax through the FastFax Message user interface or their e-mail inbox – both of which are available directly from the computer screen.

But what if you don’t want to set up unique fax number for every single employee? That’s where FastFax and ANI routing come into play.

Using FastFax’s cross-platform security architecture, you can create a single departmental profi le that allows only authorized users to access faxes through the FastFax Message user interface. This is the perfect solution for an ordering or purchasing department, where any department user can view that department’s faxes.

When specifi c individuals within a department handle certain customers or vendors, ANI routing can be used in conjunction with DID/DNIS routing to deliver inbound faxes to those individuals. Because ANI uses the sending fax device’s phone number, a FastFax table can be created to sort transmissions from certain fax numbers and deliver them appropriately. In the end, combining ANI routing with DID/DNIS allows you to route certain faxes to specifi c individuals, while other inbound faxes are received departmentally.

Achieving the right confi guration and deciding on the best combination of technology and routing options requires careful estimation of the network fax requirements. The quantity of DID/DNIS numbers that a network requires depends on the number of network users or destinations that will use the fax service. The quantity of DID lines or T1 channels required to support those users depends on the expected fax traffi c.

Fortunately, Quadrant Software’s team of professional experts has extensive experience with digital and analog confi gurations and can help you put together the right confi guration for your network. We also provide hands-on training if you decide to do the confi guration on your own. Whatever your choice, contact us at [email protected] or call 508-594-2700 to discuss your needs.

SummaryImplementing a process for automated inbound fax routing using FastFax will eliminate the need to print and manually distribute key documents that include but are not limited to Claims, Collections, Contracts, Invoices, Licenses and permits, Purchase Orders, Sales Orders, Work or Service Orders, and many more . Using distribution channels such as DID, DNIS and ANI/TSI, documents are allocated in a timely and accurate manner to one of many destination options that can include an email inbox, network folder or directly into an imaging solution.

After the automated inbound routing solution is fully installed, you will reduce costs related to time, labor and equipment; increase effi ciency by delivering documents directly to the intended recipient; obtain security by eliminating the potential display of sensitive documents; and achieve a signifi cant ROI that will keep growing.

For more information about implementing inbound fax routing at your company, contact Quadrant Software’s Sales Department at(508) 594-2700, or e-mail [email protected]. You can also visit us online at www.quadrantsoftware.com.

“Using the FastFax system, I estimate that we have avoided 30,000 trips to the fax machine this year. There are many hours of work in there.”

- Mike Nichols, IT Director Prince Castle