Today we present the top ten questions and answers from the eFax Corporate Webinar series that took place over the past year.  The questions and answers appear in no particular order and were selected due to their popularity or frequency of appearance.
Based on the questions we received, it seems that many people, from IT pros to the office administrators and document management specialists, are interested in the nuts and bolts features and capabilities of our eFax Corporate service.  

That is probably because it is only when you look under the hood and start playing with all of the myriad features of the user interface and admin portal,  you will discover the kinds of things that don’t lend themselves to glitzy marketing brochures, but that can make your work load considerably easier to manage.  That is when you will begin to really appreciate all that eFax Corporate has to offer.

1.  Can we store our faxed documents on eFax Corporate Cloud service? How much does it cost?

“Yes, and it is free, included with your eFax Corporate account. Stored faxes are searchable via keywords & metadata tags, and can be organized in a multi-level folder hierarchy.

In addition, encrypted storage using the strongest government-approved AES 256-bit encryption technology is a standard feature for compliance with data privacy and security regulations such as HIPAA, SOX, GLBA.

2.  How much can we store and for how long?

There is no limit on the quantity of eFax Corporate storage and no time limit.  You can store all of the faxes you have sent and received for as long, or as short, as your organization’s retention policies require.  You can also delete faxes at any time, and you have the option of having storage set to “OFF” as needed to comply with your document storage and retention policies.

3.  What kind or audit trail is available and what kind of reports can we generate?

eFax Corporate management portal includes an administrator log-in via a secure browser session that allows organizations to assign user rights, create profiles, manage user groups and generate reports. The administrative tool supports detail reporting based on usage, user, job codes, client billing, etc.  Reports can be created and downloaded in CSV and Excel formats.

efax-corporate-fax-admin-login-portal

For example, a report can include the logs of all faxes that have been sent or received within a specified amount of time; i.e., 30, 60, or 90 days or one year.  Here are the parameters that can be included in a report of a user’s sent faxes:
•    From
•    Job #
•    Date
•    To
•    Duration
•    #  of Pages
•    Acct. ID
•    Client
•    Matter
•    Receipt To
•    Status – sent/fail

4.  Can we move our current fax numbers to eFax Corporate?  How long does it take? What if I don’t want to use an existing number?  Are there other options?

Yes, you can request that your current fax numbers be ported to eFax Corporate.  Number portability is a standard process among telecommunications providers to transfer numbers as customers move from one provider to another.  For business accounts, it normally takes about 2-3 weeks to have numbers ported from one provider to another.  

You will need to provide a letter of authorization (LOA) to your previous service provider to initiate the transfer process.  You will be notified by your customer service representative when your number has been successfully ported over.

If you don’t have a fax number, or want new ones, eFax Corporate can assign new fax numbers, known as DID (direct inward dial) numbers, as many as you like.  Local and toll-free fax numbers are available throughout our network in more than 49 countries on six continents.

5.  Could you please discuss the difference between eFax Corporate cloud service and eFax Developer Fax API?

The eFax Developer™ Fax API is designed for those organizations that need a custom solution for high-volume faxing.  Our Fax API includes XML-based software developer kits (SDKs) for .NET or Java environments and enable easy integration with any enterprise ERP or CRM system or with Electronic Medical Record systems. The SDK’s include many optional values that can be used to optimize workflows, such as barcode reading.  The eFax Developer™ platform also supports the latest encryption standard — TLS 1.2 — to ensure compliance with HIPAA regulations and PCI-DSS standards.

6.  Can we send and receive eFaxes from multifunction printers (MFPs)?  And what do we do with the analog line that we use to fax from our printers?

Yes, your employees can fax right from the glass of your existing multifunction printers (MFPs) — as easily as they can send an email. As long as the MFP has email capability and is attached to the corporate network, a document can be scanned and then sent as an email through your MFP via the eFax Corporate service, with a convenient confirmation receipt emailed directly to the sender. An MFP with an IP address can also be assigned its own eFax Corporate number so inbound faxes can be received, printed and/or stored on the device for later retrieval, just like a standalone fax machine.

And you can disconnect those analog fax lines that used to connect the MFP, because you will not need them anymore, saving $50-60 per month per printer on average.

fax-from-mfp-and-mfds

7.  Are there any limits on the number of pages or number of faxes that can be sent at one time?

The maximum length of an individual inbound fax is 200 pages.  Up to 10 attachments and up to 25MB file size can be sent at one time, to as many as 20 simultaneous recipients.  Faxes can also be broadcast to a maximum of 200 recipients via eFax Messenger™ client software.

8.  Can each department in a company have its own fax number and have their own login information for each number?

Some companies want every employee to have their own personal fax number, others prefer that administrators have one number for a group or department or even for a single domain. Shared folders can also be set up in your email program from which end users can retrieve their faxes.  The choice is up to the individual customer.

9.  How are incoming faxes routed to individual users?

Faxes are routed based on the eFax Corporate number (DID) which is mapped to the email address of the account holder for that number. So a fax sent to 867-5309, for example, will be routed to the email inbox of the person(s) to which that number was assigned.  Up to 5 email addresses can be assigned to each DID.  

Faxes can also be routed based on bar codes that identify each sheet in a fax transmission.  Should the fax pages for multiple transmissions become mixed up by the sender, the bar code reader will automatically sort them in the correct order.

10.  Do we have to scan documents before we can fax them via eFax Corporate?

Nope, unless you have a document that needs a ‘wet ink’ signature prior to sending, there is no need to leave your desk to scan a document before faxing.  eFax Corporate supports many different file types, up to 47 in total, for most leading word-processing, spreadsheet, graphics, publishing and presentation formats.  

Simply attach the document you want to fax to an email message, and address that email with the format [email protected] and hit send.  That’s all there is to it. If you need a cover sheet, your email message will become the cover sheet.  Custom templates are also available that can become standard cover sheets for your organization.

fax-with-efax-corporate-is-easy

The Best of Fax & the Best of Email

Cloud faxing from eFax Corporate provides the best of fax with the best of email – the ability to send many different types of documents directly from your desktop (without the need to scan first) to pretty much any fax machine anywhere in the world.  And it is just that simple in reverse.  Anyone can fax documents to you from pretty much any fax machine or fax server anywhere in the world to your eFax Corporate number and they will arrive in your email in box as PDF or TIFF (image) attachments.

It’s just that simple, and as the market research shows, the continued growth of ‘faxing’ is in part due to the ease of use provided by these new ‘electronic methods and integration of these new methods with company’s workflow processes and document management systems.  

With a cloud fax solution, the entire fax process is handled via the web — whether through your company’s email, multifunction printer, workflow application, your staff’s mobile devices or through a secure web-portal.

Using any of these options, you will be able to develop the protocols, the permissions and the restrictions to ensure only those authorized personnel are ever able to view or download these confidential faxes, which puts your company in a much better position with regard to your industry’s data privacy regulators.

With our custom fax solution, for example, end users can send and receive faxes by email, through an online portal, from their mobile devices, multifunction printers, CRM, ERP and other productivity applications, and more.  And the IT staff can even develop its own fax APIs to integrate eFax Corporate’s Developer product into in-house applications and workflow platforms like Salesforce and SAP.

efax-corporate-cloud-faxing-solutions

Learn more about outsourcing to a cloud fax model with eFax Corporate.