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

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

2 Page 2 Introduction Claims, 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:» Confidential 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 suffers for not being able to receive faxes» Vendors and customers are constantly having to call you to confirm 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 Basics Different documents require different handling. A key benefit of automating the receiving of faxes using an enterprise faxing solution such as FastFax is the capability to automatically route the inbound fax to different 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 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 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 different 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

3 Page 3 The following diagram illustrates each destination option for inbound routing. Network Folder Fax Fax Server Printer IntelliChief Imaging Database FastFax Inbound Queues» Directly into your 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 Benefits of Automated Inbound Fax Routing Without leaving your desk, you can receive and view your faxes directly via:» FastFax iseries screens» FastFax PC Client/WindowFax» inbox» Printer» Archive folder» IntelliChief Document Imaging screen» Forward inbound faxes to co-workers via FastFax or your system» Resend a received fax via FastFax as a fax or » Eliminate faxes lost or misplaced at stand-alone fax machines» Automatically send received fax confirmation faxes to selected senders» Improve security / confidentiality of inbound documents» Eliminate the risk of losing documents

4 Page 4 Automating inbound fax routing significantly 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 file 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 FAXING COSTS Customer RFQ's Inbound Manual Fax Transmission Costs Orders Invoices Acknowledgements How many faxes are received per document type per day? What is the average number of pages per document? Average number of fax pages received per day Daily Inbound Faxing Costs (includes telephone costs and consumables) $15.00 $18.00 $6.00 $3.00 Annual 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? Total Time taken to collect, sort, distribute inbound faxes per day (mins) 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 Need help figuring out your costs or need to discuss your specific situation? our sales consultants for a detailed personalized ROI calculation at [email protected].

5 Page 5 The Technology Behind Inbound Fax Routing There 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 configure 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 Identification Service» Automatic Number Identification» Transmitting Subscriber Identification Line Routing Line Routing in Brief: Line routing allows you to assign a physical fax line to a user or group. Line Routing Explained: If your office 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 specific 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 Gateways is being used, the fax can also be sent to the person s inbox.

6 Page 6 Direct Inward Dialing (DID) - Analog DID 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 specific 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 office 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 Gateway is being utilized, the inbound fax will be sent directly to the inbox. Example: Sales uses the number while Customer Service may use and Accounts Payable may use As faxes are sent to each specific 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 inbox. Fax Sent Sent to: DID: 6242 DID: 6150 DID: 7123 DID: 8145 FastFax Server 6242: Sales 7123: Customer Service 8145: Accounting Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) - Digital DNIS 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 benefit of T1 line service over DID is the easy management of the two-way fax traffic 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.

7 Page 7 Automatic Number Identification (ANI) ANI in Brief: Also referred to as caller ID, ANI is simply the identification 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 different account managers or divisions. ANI Explained: Where DID and DNIS identify the destination fax number that was dialed by the sender, ANI identifies the phone number doing the dialing (Caller ID). Through ANI, FastFax can pinpoint the sender and provide more specific delivery/routing options for any incoming fax. With ANI routing, the FastFax fax card identifies 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 first 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 configured to recognize the sender s entire phone number. Also, if a specific 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 sent from Routing Table East Team Fax Sent FastFax Server Central Team West Team Transmitting Subscriber Identification (TSI) TSI in Brief: The TSI is a string that identifies where the fax is coming from. You usually see a company name at the top of fax pages as the identifier. This string can be setup at the fax machine or if you are using a fax system such as FastFax, it can be easily configured 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 Identification (TSI or TSID) is a string that identifies the sender of a fax, and is sent by the fax machine. This identification 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 Identification (CSID). TSI Routing Table Accounting Fax Sent FastFax Server Customer Service Sales

8 Page 8 Configuring FastFax for Efficient Inbound Routing DID/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 specific user or department. DID/DNIS includes flexible 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 specified person s desktop instead of dealing with the risk of the documents being physically printed and transferred throughout the office. Users will receive the fax through the FastFax Message user interface or their 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 profile 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 specific 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 specific individuals, while other inbound faxes are received departmentally. Achieving the right configuration 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 traffic. Fortunately, Quadrant Software s team of professional experts has extensive experience with digital and analog configurations and can help you put together the right configuration for your network. We also provide hands-on training if you decide to do the configuration on your own. Whatever your choice, contact us at [email protected] or call to discuss your needs. Summary Implementing 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 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 efficiency by delivering documents directly to the intended recipient; obtain security by eliminating the potential display of sensitive documents; and achieve a significant ROI that will keep growing. For more information about implementing inbound fax routing at your company, contact Quadrant Software s Sales Department at (508) , or [email protected]. You can also visit us online at 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