Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition and Microsoft Exchange 2010

Faxing is important for many businesses that need signatures, drawings, and other paper-based content. Open Text, which specializes in enterprise content management, has large customers worldwide who need rich fax functionality. To help them, Open Text enhanced its fax-processing software to work with Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010, providing a rich feature to augment companies’ unified communications environments.

Business Needs
Open Text is an enterprise software company that helps organizations manage a wide range of content, including electronic and paper business documents, e-mail, digital media such as images and video, and Web content. The company has about 50 million users in 114 countries.

Its main product offering is the Open Text ECM Suite, a modular set of software products. In addition to helping manage corporate content, ECM Suite provides tools to help users collaborate on project and community workspaces, forums, blogs, and wikis. Open Text also offers an e-mail management solution that organizations can use to enforce measured records management controls against e-mail messages originating in the Microsoft® Exchange environment. Another of the company’s solutions is Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition, which integrates fax capabilities into enterprise networks and messaging systems.

“In many of the vertical industries and businesses we serve—such as banking, healthcare, mortgage companies, and patent offices—faxes are still recognized as important legal documents. And they are often required to complete business transactions,” says Raul Camacho, Senior Product Manager for the Open Text Fax and Document Distribution Group. Exchange Server 2010 opens a new partner-based model for fax interoperability with Exchange Unified Messaging. Open Text, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, has a history of providing products with a deep interoperability with Exchange Server and the ability to natively send and receive fax messages from a common interface.

Solution
Open Text worked with Microsoft to develop rich enterprise fax functionality that would integrate with Exchange Server 2010. The company followed a set of technical and business requirements developed by Microsoft for Exchange Server 2010 to ensure that fax capabilities integrate seamlessly and are easy to use and manage.

These features support two kinds of users. First are employees who are accustomed to using unified messaging systems that include fax functions and who have phone numbers set up to receive faxes. The other users are IT administrators who have established policies and procedures for dial plans that work in conjunction with Exchange Server.

Open Text developed the Exchange Connector for Exchange Server 2010, which helps to route faxes into and out of the Exchange Server system using Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition.

When a fax comes into an enterprise, Exchange Server 2010 Unified Messaging forwards it to the Fax Server, which processes the document so it can be transmitted to, and viewed within, Outlook as a native fax message.

After the processing, Fax Server routes the fax through Exchange Server to the recipient’s Outlook Inbox, where it is sent to the user’s Inbox and to the Faxes subfolder. The original fax appears as an e-mail attachment that a user can select and receive an in-window view of the content. Users can also send e-mail messages and attachments to the Fax Server from their Outlook Inbox. Open Text technology then automatically converts the messages and attachments to faxes and sends them to the intended recipients outside the enterprise.

Benefits
By developing and updating its technology solutions to work with Exchange Server 2010, Open Text provides enterprises with continued fax functionality that is vital for particular industries. Integration with Exchange Server 2010 makes faxing a seamless part of the overall enterprise infrastructure, providing a strong return on investment by reducing or eliminating the need for physical fax machines. In addition, fax functionality becomes a part of a larger unified communications infrastructure that people can rely on to receive, view, and send faxes from a variety of devices.

Uninterrupted access to fax functions. The fax solutions that Open Text has developed for Exchange Server 2010 provide enterprises with continued access to network-based fax capabilities. “This fax technology and its integration with Exchange Server 2010 preserve the investment that organizations have already made in their unified messaging systems,” says Camacho.

Protection and compliance. With Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition, the fax is digitally protected, helping to prevent loss or unauthorized viewing of documents. The Exchange Connector ensures that a fax is sent to the correct person’s Outlook inbox or to a designated proxy. And it can be encrypted for additional protection if required. The logging and auditing feature provides the ability to review and track all faxes from sender to recipient.

Significant ROI through enterprise integration. The seamless integration of the Open Text fax technology eliminates faxing as a stand-alone feature requiring additional resources to maintain. Key features such as Active Directory® service synchronization and support for Outlook Contact forms provide well-known tools for managing faxes alongside the other unified messaging features. “When customers centralize our fax technology into the enterprise, there are significant returns in cost and labor savings,” says Camacho.

Rich functionality through unified communications. The Open Text fax technology helps to enrich existing unified communications environments. “With Open Text Fax Server functions and Exchange Server 2010, fax capabilities become another seamlessly integrated tool that helps users get their work done,” says Camacho.

For more information about the Open Text Fax Server Connector for Microsoft Exchange 2010, please contact us.

Original article is located here.