An ingenious solution for faxes using the Electronic Document Delivery feature in SL 7.0

It is possible to use the Electronic Document Delivery feature in SL 7.0 to send faxes. However the out of the box solution requires a dedicated workstation, with fax services installed and also be equipped with a fax modem and connected to a phone line.

These are the disadvantages.

1)Nowadays, the modern PC's and servers do not come equipped with fax modems and a phone jack, since broadband has become the preference.

2)Even if you find a PC that has a fax modem, it has to be constantly hooked to a phone line.


Solution

It is possible to use the online fax providers like www.efax.com or www.myfax.com to bypass this issue. What the efax or myfax service provides is that it allows an e-mail to be sent to their fax servers who will route your message to a regular fax machine.

For example, if you want to send a fax to (858) 794 9404, the receiver's e-mail address needs to be filled out as 18587949404@myfax.com in the Vendor Maintenance screen if a Purchase Order needs to be automatically faxed.

Once this is done, the Electronic document delivery process will automatically attach the Purchase Order and send this as an e-mail via the Application server. Once the e-mail is sent, the fax servers at e-fax or myfax will send the fax to the number stated to a regular fax machine.

This workaround allows tremendous savings in cost as a new workstation need not be purchased, the phone lines are not tied up and it is extremely easy to monitor as all confirmations of the fax is automatically sent back to the e-mail profile of the Application Server.