Better fax solution for small business

June 23, 2009 10:58 AM

Need help improving medium-to-high volume small business faxing.

I manage a small business that provides timely reports to its clients - overwhelmingly, by fax. I have been using a small HP multifunction printer/scanner/fax (model LaserJet 2727nf) to send outgoing faxes.

Pros of the current system are:

- It works, usually. The report is generated, we print the report right out of the report generating software, the fax option is present in the print dialog box, and the fax software (usually) pops right up and faxes it.

- The printer holds 150 fax numbers, and the software polls the printer on software launch to load these, slowing workflow considerably. However, that database is accessible to anyone using that fax, on the whole network.

Cons:

- It doesn't work all the time. The fax software leaks memory. Sometimes it hard hangs, requiring manual reboot of the system, which is not good, as a lot of users work remotely.

- We fax frequently to about 200 numbers and rarely to about 300 more, so the database is not adequate in size.

- There's no easy way to develop fax distribution lists and use them to send batches of fax spam (ideally scheduled at night when offices are closed), which is a function we'd like to implement. If you care, it'd be rare message of immediate importance to our clients, such as "our phone number and address have changed."

- Sometimes the fax software backgrounds itself to accomplish its task; sometimes it doesn't, hanging the system up completely until all the faxes are complete. It always leaves a foregrounded window right in the middle of the screen work area, which is a nuisance as it hangs up my employees' workflow.

- The only way to note that a fax has not sent is to request a hardcopy printout. This has to be reviewed by an employee physically present at the fax machine, which is suboptimal.

Question is, what is the best software or hardware available to accomplish our purposes? Really looking for an upgrade, relative to the HPToolBoxFX software, which I feel we're outgrowing. We could drop a couple thousand dollars on this if it was best of breed, but not a couple hundred thousand.

Not interested in: whether we should be using fax versus a newer technology; whether 'fax spam' is appropriate or not.

posted by Protocols of the Elders of Sockpuppetry to technology (5 comments total)

I haven't ever done a comparison of different options, so I can't say what is best, but I thought I'd mention that if you already have a computer running the Windows Server OS that has one or more fax modems installed on it, Windows Server has built-in facilities designed to let it operate as a fax server. See here for example:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc770695.aspx

That article is for Windows Server 2008 but to my knowledge earlier versions had basically equivalent functionality.
posted by XMLicious at 11:27 AM on June 23

Perhaps GFI FaxMaker would be interesting? Of course, you didn't mention if the "system" you have to reboot is a server? Anyway, this software require an server running Exchange.
posted by tcv at 5:54 PM on June 23

I *know* you said that you don't want to discuss newer tech/spam, but I do urge you to review your options. Sending via email as a PDF attachment really would improve volume, tracking and such. It really seems like such an easy call. I'll leave off the preach about trees/planet.
posted by FlamingBore at 6:27 PM on June 23

No server, no exchange; the office network is just a bunch of Windows XP Pro boxen and employees frequently log into one of them remotely via RDC.

FlamingBore, thanks, but not an option for us for numerous reasons. I agree with your points as passionately as you can imagine but am not the agent for change in this situation.
posted by Protocols of the Elders of Sockpuppetry at 7:07 PM on June 23

Well, instead of completely switching away from faxing, consider using newer tools to accomplish your faxing.

Fax broadcasting is supplied by a lot of different companies. I have used J2 myself in the past (formerly jfax and efax now a merged company)

jBlast

At your numbers, this would be about $6 per 100 faxes, which if you are faxing all over the country/world would probably be cheaper than your long distance rates (possibly not)

It doesn't seem like a prohibitive expense, and supports 1000's of numbers. (I personally have used it before to fax 6000 numbers and my undeliverable report showed only 3 bad numbers which I used alternate means to get the fax to them.

Just print to PDF and use the Jblast software and you're good. It's pretty lightweight and because most of the work is done on their servers (except for you uploading the file) it's unlikely to cause crashes or other issues. (If your employees use RDC into a Windows XP box, that can cause different issues for applications running that are not background services unless they are remoting in under the same logon credentials and not ending the Fax session's login.)

memail me if you want more first hand details. I'm curious what kind of information you sell too.

-MJ
posted by emjay at 6:25 AM on June 24