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Think about how fax technology has evolved over the years. When you first
faxed a document, the scenario probably went something like this: You
created a document, printed it, walk ed over to the fax machine, and then
fax- ed the printout to someone. Then you either filed or threw away the
original document. No one else in your department was aware of what faxes
were or were not sent to a particular customer.
Then, along came LAN fax software that allowed you to fax from your PC.
While this saved you a trip to both the printer and fax machine (and saved
a few trees in the process), it still didn't allow other personnel in your
department to be aware of which faxes you sent. If someone left the
company, how would you know which deals or discounts were offered to a
customer? There were no records of any faxes sent.
Nowadays, there are a few products that offer integration of fax
software with contact manager software. That is, you can send a fax from
within the contact manager with links to past faxes sent to each
individual contact. This allows other personnel in your department to view
faxes sent to a particular contact from within the contact manager.
Z-Firm's FaxRush 4.0 is one such solution that provides excellent fax
integration into the popular contact manager, GoldMine.
Rather than requiring a separate application to initiate a fax, a user
can simply schedule an activity from within GoldMine to send a fax.
Drawing upon GoldMine users' experience at scheduling other types of
activities, such as a callback, is a major plus in lessening the FaxRush
learning curve. Also, because FaxRush is an extension of GoldMine, users
do not need to check the fax logs of external programs. All fax status
information is stored in GoldMine.
INSTALLATION
Z-Firm sent us a turnkey system with Brooktrout fax boards and GoldMine
5.0 pre-installed. However, we opted to uninstall some of the software
components and then reinstall them, just to get a feel for how the
software installation might go. Overall it was an easy process. Also,
initial configuration of the software was examined. Several configuration
options are available, but in most cases the default settings are
sufficient. One of the required items is choosing the version of GoldMine
that you are using, and pointing to the GoldMine contact database.
Another step required installing and detecting the fax hardware,
whether it was a fax modem or a Brooktrout board and then enabling it from
the FaxRush Server administration interface. Z-Firm had pre-installed a
two-port Brooktrout board, which saved us the trouble of having to detect
or enable these ports. Generally, installation was easy. Although Z-Firm
had done a lot of the work for us, we could tell from reading the
documentation that if we had to install everything from scratch it
wouldn't have been that difficult.
DOCUMENTATION
The documentation was very good, but with some minor reservations. While
it was well organized, had plenty of screenshots, a table of contents, and
an index, we found some grammatical and typographical errors. These errors
were minor, but affected our overall impression of the manual. That point
aside, the manual was very readable and explained things in detail. It
even introduced a bit of humor occasionally within the manual, breaking up
the monotony.
The documentation could have done a better job explaining how each
GoldMine user can create an individual fax "lookup" library. The
documentation seems to indicate that the fax library is a global, shared
fax library, when in fact, our tests determined that each user can define
individual favorite faxes in a private fax directory. While the
description of a private fax can be viewed globally by all GoldMine users,
only the user who has access rights to the actual fax directory can view
or send this fax.
One final complaint involved the discussion of the support for standard
Microsoft Office .dot and .doc files. During our tests, we determined that
FaxRush supports these file formats beautifully. Unfortunately, the
documentation repeatedly mentions .rtf (Rich Text Format) throughout the
manual as though this was the preferred file format. Even their test
samples were saved in .rtf format. The manual seemed to imply that we
would lose functionality with .doc files. It wasn't until we read the
manual very closely that we discovered that it indeed supported the more
common .dot and .doc file formats.
FEATURES
FaxRush supports several means of outbound faxing, including via standard
fax modems or Brooktrout cards, Internet fax, and the ability to fax to a
separate RightFax system via a connector. Receiving faxes is also
available with FaxRush and includes the ability to print received faxes to
a laser printer or to simply associate the fax with a contact record in
GoldMine. Fax confirmation stamps within GoldMine include page count,
duration, and remote fax ID. One particularly useful feature is FaxRush's
ability to automatically print out faxes to a designated laser printer.
Another interesting feature is the FaxRush RightFax connector. If you have
a RightFax server in-house, FaxRush will add the RightFax server's fax
ports to its pool of fax resources for sending out faxes.
Other features include:
- User defined merge codes for performing customizable mass-faxes.
- Included TIF viewing utility.
- Universal print-to-TIF utility to convert any application to a
faxable format.
- User-defined fax priority.
- GoldMine dBase and SQL support.
- Fax utilizing GoldMine .dot templates.
- New option to fire a Word macro on the file before faxing or
printing it.
- Support for fax modems, including U.S. Robotics (3Com), Hayes,
Multitech, Rockwell chipset modems, and other generic Class 1 modems.
- Support for high-quality Brooktrout fax boards.
OPERATIONAL TESTING
For our first test, we wanted to send an outbound fax. From within
GoldMine, we needed only perform a few simple steps. After selecting a
contact from within GoldMine, we clicked on "Schedule," and then
on "Other Action," which brought up a screen for scheduling the
fax. Next, we set "FAXRUSH" as the primary user. If we wished to
send the fax using the Internet fax service provider, instead of the
Brooktrout board, we could have simply selected "INETFAX"
instead.
The "Reference" field within this screen is where the true
power of FaxRush lies. We could simply type "test1.tif" and a
predefined test fax file in the C:\Program Files\FaxRush\ Outfax directory
would be faxed. Or we could type in "letter1.dot" which would
send out a Word template complete with database merge codes. By separating
each document typed into the "Reference" field with a space, you
can type in multiple documents for multi-document faxing. Also, if you
type anything within the "Notes" field while scheduling a fax,
FaxRush knows to automatically print a cover page and include the notes
you typed. With this in mind, for our first test fax, we entered some text
into this field to test the automatic cover sheet feature as well.
After we scheduled the fax, it showed up in the "Pending" tab
within GoldMine. After a few seconds, the Brooktrout board dialed a fax
machine near our lab, which we could hear receiving the fax. We checked it
and the pages came out perfectly, including the default cover page with
our notes. We checked GoldMine's History tab, and sure enough there was a
record entry for our successful fax, which included pages, duration, and
remote ID.
Of course for our first tests, we used some canned fax templates that
Z-Firm includes with the fax server's literature database. We decided to
see how easy it was to add more faxes to the fax literature database. By
adding an entry into GoldMine's "Other Action" lookup window, we
could point to existing .doc, .pdf, .tif, .dcx, or other file formats.
Simply by using the format <filename>;//<description>, we were
able to point to files we copied to the OutFax directory and create
descriptions for each of the files.
You've Got A Package
FaxRush Packages is an interesting feature that allows users to send out
multiple documents utilizing a single FaxRush Package (FRP) file. Putting
a series of fax document filenames into a single, standard text file
(including complete paths) is all that is needed. Then, referencing the
fax package file when scheduling an "Other Action" in GoldMine
will send out the multi-document fax.
Receiving Faxes
FaxRush will automatically receive faxes and can even link it to a
GoldMine record based on the Calling Station ID (CLID); consider this
caller-ID for faxes. Unfortunately, not everyone sets the CLID on their
fax machines, but this is a useful feature nevertheless. Inbound faxes can
be viewed from FaxRush's Viewer. From this point, you have the option of
linking each individual fax to a GoldMine record or creating a new
GoldMine record to link the fax to. You can also just view the fax and
delete it without linking it. Once a fax has been linked to a GoldMine
contact record, you can read it from the History tab, so you no longer
have to remember which proposals or discounts were sent or received.
Simply check the History tab.
FaxRush supports both private and shared fax directories. Since faxes
are stored in standard directories, rather than a separate database,
Windows NT file security can be applied, protecting each user's faxes from
being viewed by other users. Or instead, read-only access can be set to
allow users to view other user's faxes but with no delete permissions.
Automatic Conversion To Faxable Format
FaxRush supports automatic conversion of .tif, dcx, .rtf, .dot, .dcx, and
.pdf files for faxing. Although we should mention that Adobe Acrobat (.pdf)
conversion on the server is a separate licensing fee. However, since
FaxRush ships with a Print-To-TIF utility, users can always convert
Acrobat or any other document from their workstation and store it onto the
FaxRush fax library. We tested sending out Word documents (.dot and .doc),
Acrobat files and the server automatically converted the files without us
having to print the faxes first.
ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT
We would like to see better error displays on the FaxRush channel monitor.
The RJ11 clip was broken, which made the phone line fall out. FaxRush said
"Sending" when actually it should have said "No dialtone."
Of course, this may depend on the Brooktrout driver's ability to report
this back to the FaxRush software. But if it does, we feel it should
display it.
Also when a fax errors out, there should be a more descriptive error
within the real-time display as opposed to looking at the log file or
double-clicking the "Pending" activity for a description of the
last fax attempt. Of course, this is only useful for administrators who
are troubleshooting the system, since the real-time display is only
accessible on the server itself.
The manual has the words "Administrator's Guide" on the right
hand margin of each page. We recommend putting the major chapter topics in
this spot instead. This would allow for quick flipping to any particular
topic without referring to the table of contents or index.
As it currently stands, all received faxes go into a central
repository, which then must be routed by someone to a GoldMine user or
linked to a GoldMine contact. Of course, sales personnel also have access
to this central repository of faxes, so they can search for their own
personal faxes. However, we came up with a better system. If each GoldMine
user had his or her own DID number, then the fax could be tagged in the
FaxViewer as belonging to a specific GoldMine user. Then the sales person
can view his or her own faxes without wading through the entire list of
new incoming faxes. Also, if linked to GoldMine's alarms, a popup window
could be sent to a specific GoldMine user on an incoming fax. Finally, we
would like the ability to perform "multiple selects" via the
Shift or Ctrl key to highlight and delete multiple faxes within the
FaxRush Viewer.
CONCLUSION
We should mention that Z-Firm has other useful productivity enhancement
software, including ShipRush, which is able to print FedEx labels. In
fact, we took a quick look at it, and the GUI actually looks like a real
FedEx air bill -- making it snap to use! Also available is a product
called CashRush, which can be used for credit card processing and order
entry within GoldMine.
Optimizing your sales force and making them more efficient is an
important factor in increasing revenue. Z-Firm's FaxRush product is
certainly an excellent product in automating a repetitive and often
time-consuming task -- namely sending out faxes on a daily basis. TMC Labs
was very impressed with the ease of use of FaxRush and its effective
integration with GoldMine. GoldMine users that are already accustomed to
scheduling callbacks or appointments, will love how they can now schedule
a fax in virtually the same way. TMC Labs gives FaxRush high marks for its
features and would highly recommend it to GoldMine users with a strong
need for automating, storing, and tracking the faxing process.
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