OpenText Fax & Document Distribution Group

By Matthew McWhirter with Axient, an OpenText Partner

The Transport Booking and Invoicing Transformation (also known as Transport Booking, or TBIT) project is the first of a number of projects which fall under the Choice and Maintainability Services program for the Federal Government Department.

The Transport Booking project will deliver a number of business and technical outcomes by replacing an outdated and unsustainable technical booking system. It will also ensure a consistent quality of service delivery as it is driven by nationally consistent business process implementation. With a number of centralized customer service centers supporting the Department’s regional, state, and national operations, fax is a widely used communication channel.

The project will be delivered in two parts – an initial pilot rollout to a selected location in January 2011, as well as a national rollout which will follow the initial pilot. There is a strategic imperative to demonstrate the ability to embed the necessary change management, governance culture, project and program management capabilities using this project; as well as ensuring the Department’s continued efficiency and discipline in maintenance of operations and service delivery in an environment of significant ICT-enabled change. This particular project was chosen because it offers large potential benefits in terms of process efficiency and IT support risk reduction.

So where does Fax fit in? Fax is a required and commonly used service delivery channel. Using the XML and Integration modules, a web-based fax interface is being deployed. Functionality used in these modules includes XML Submit, Action and Query. This will allow the Department to submit faxes from within their IIS application and give them the capability to monitor the fax through their own business process. It will also allow them to deliver real time updates to the web within Book Car With Driver service.

The OpenText RightFax solution, implemented early last year, is a dual server V9.4, SR140 Collective integrated with Avaya.

For additional information or to learn more about Axient, please contact Matthew McWhirter, mmcwhirter[at]axient.com.au or visit www.axient.com.au.

PCI, what is it, how do we support it with RightFax? I’ve seen customers, internal and external; ask this question several times over the last couple months.

Well, it could be an acronym for the Precast Concrete Institute, but in this context it’s not (unless maybe they are a customer of ours). It could be the Peripheral Component Interconnect standard for local bus connectivity, but in this case it’s not (though this is relevant for RightFax due to the Fax Boards we use).

Instead, PCI is the Payment Card Industry (think debit and credit cards) and we are getting asked about this due to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). In October of this year (2010) the PCI Security Standards Council, a global, open industry standards body for this topic, released version 2.0 of the PCI DSS which becomes effective January 1, 2011.

Why is this relevant to RightFax you say? Well, as it happens, PCI DSS applies to companies that process and store sensitive payment card information such as the primary account number, cardholder name, expiration date and service code. Many companies that process and store this type of data are using fax for at least some part of this. When these customers are using RightFax for part of this business process the fax images stored by the RightFax server may contain this sensitive payment card information and fall under the requirements for storage under PCI DSS.

How do we comply with this requirement? Well, in one case, since the requirement for the customer was to get the fax images into an encrypted storage location we engaged our professional services team to develop a solution using the Open Text Document Server, Alchemy Edition to store the faxes in encrypted format using the Alchemy Database Encryption Module. This would meet the storage requirements in the PCI DSS guidelines and still provide employee access to the faxes via an Alchemy client.

If you are in the process of assessing your annual PCI compliance, or needing to understand better how to ensure Open RightFax be compliant with the new PCI DSS v2.0 standard (effective January 1^st 2011); please consult with Open Text Professional Services as soon as possible. Our consultants will work with you to understand your specific business needs and compliance requirements in relation to your RightFax implementation. This includes the option of extending your RightFax system with our Document Server connector and Database Encryption Module. Have you run into a PCI implementation requirement? How did you handle it? For more information on PCI DSS and other payment card industry security standards go to https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/ .

By Jim Weiser

With the launch of the new OpenText Fax Appliance A102 and A104, we have developed a very cost-effective fax solution. As we’ve just wrapped up our extensive beta program period, consisting of end customers and Value Added Resellers in the US, Canada, Europe, China, and the Middle East, I’ve been in the process of interviewing and gathering the participant’s thoughts on the appliance. One comment which continues to be raised throughout the sites and surveys is the sheer affordability of the appliance, especially when compared to a subscription fax solution. A subscription fax solution, we know, has per page and/or per user costs, which can increase significantly over time, something that our Fax Appliance avoids.

One customer involved in the beta program particularly stands out in my mind. He stated that they had 20 users for their subscription fax solution. Each department was then forced to absorb the cost of the service by having those 20 employees submit expense reports each month. The Managing Director was unaware that his organization was spending, on average, $600 per month on faxing for only about 100 pages per day! This customer, like many, didn’t realize how quickly the per page and per user costs were adding up over time. They have since implemented a Fax Appliance A104 and believe that they have cut their fax spending by at least half. The customer has calculated that the A104 will pay for itself in less than 9 months.

Like above, by switching to the OpenText Fax Appliance, customers will still be able to receive the same low maintenance benefits as a service—without the hidden fees racking up. Most see a return on their investment in as little as 2 months; now that’s a significant savings.

In addition to creating a cost-effective product, we’ve also created one that is remarkably easy to use. Simplicity is the game and reviews from our beta sites have returned, without exception, comments on just how easy the A102 and A104 products are to deploy, maintain and use. Our 35 page Admin Guide is enough, circumventing a need for a User Guide altogether.

Uncomplicated and cost-effective, it really doesn’t get any better than that.

I recently read Wikipedia’s entry on production fax and drew two conclusions: (1) Wikipedia is wrong, sort of, and (2) I must be a word geek for wanting to point that out.

Wikipedia says that production fax is “the process of integrating an electronic fax software application to automate the sending and receiving of fax documents.” That was true some year back, but these days production fax describes outbound technology that allows business to integrate, automate and deliver documents.

Open Text Fax Server, RightFax Edition, can receive tremendous volumes of faxes, route them, categorize them, insert them into workflows, email them, etc.—all automatically. That’s not generally called production fax anymore, it’s called fax automation. Of course, it doesn’t really matter what you call it … unless you’re a word geek like me, in which case it’s fascinating.

Feel free to make up your own name for it. Like productivity fax, or Oracle-SAP-and-almost-any-system-fax. Okay, that last one was too long. What really matters is how you can leverage it to make your business more profitable, which is explained in about 500 words in this short (3:30) video.

This video is also available for Partners to download as .wmv from Solutions Central. Use this unaltered version on your own website, Youtube channel, or anywhere else you’d like to share this information.

By Jim Wieser, Senior Product Manager

Today we have announced Open Text Fax Appliance A10x, a new family of Fax Appliances designed to simplify network fax deployment and use, while providing a cost effective alternative to traditional MFP fax kits and recurring monthly charges with internet fax service providers.

Designed as a simple to deploy, maintain, and use network appliance, the new OpenText Fax Appliance addresses the needs of small businesses and departments with limited IT resources and basic faxing requirements. OpenText is the only vendor offering a complete range of fax solutions including appliances, servers, and fax gateways.

The new Fax Appliance A10x is a true network appliance. The Fax Appliance provides simplified installation and setup and incorporates all the features and capabilities you need in an affordable turnkey fax solution. Users can easily send and receive faxes from the desktop, multi-function products (MFPs), and email.

Integration of Fax Appliance with multi-function products (MFPs) allows organizations to consolidate network faxing services. MFP integration is included in all Fax Appliance models, allowing users to easily fax paper documents using an MFP or network scanner equipped with scan-to-email functionality.

Our goal from the start has been to develop a product for the global market. To that end, we support 14 languages in both user and administrator modes. Even the system audit trail is translated into 14 languages.

Click to read the complete announcement.

For more information, visit the Fax Appliance website at www.fax-appliance.com

To contact sales, please email captaris.sales@opentext.com or call 1-800-304-2727

UPDATE: February 8, 2012 to show current course dates

Six months ago we started offering FREE instructor-led RightFax training for anyone who wanted it. Since then, we have taught hundreds of RightFax admins. The training covers the basic tasks every new RightFax administrator needs to understand. This includes how to manage users, groups, printers, cover sheets, and reporting. I demonstrate everything on a WebEx and you listen in on the phone. Its roughly scripted, but I am eager to go off on tangents depending on what the callers are interested in. If you have any questions, we can try to address them on the call. We have dial-in numbers for most countries in the world so the only cost to you is a few hours of your time. This isn’t a replacement for tech support, but in teaching RightFax courses for five years, I have learned a thing or two about how people manage our solutions. Some example tangential topics that have come up in recent sessions include fax to email and email to fax, user synchronization with Active Directory, and managing more than one user at a time.

The courses are offered at two time slots, once per month. The first time slot is at 10:30 AM where I live in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The second time slot is geared for the Americas and is at 8:00 AM PST. To register, visit http://captaristraining.webex.com, then click on the Upcoming tab. You will see all of our schedule courses. The ones I am talking about here are labeled Complimentary RightFax Admin Training. The dates for all of the trainings offered in 2011 are listed below. If you are new to RightFax or have a customer who needs to get up to speed, join me on one of the upcoming FREE trainings.

• February 9, 2012
• February 20, 2012
• March 9, 2012

The other day I had a problem in a training class with a RightFax server. One of my services just would not start. Or if it did start, it stopped right away. When this happens I know exactly what to do: I look at the Windows Event Log. There should be a brief error description in the event log that tells me what the problem is. One of the more common problems is that the username or the password changed but hadn’t been updated in the service.

But thats not the problem that I was experiencing. There was no error that showed up in the error log. Nothing! I couldn’t start the service in debug mode. I couldn’t even run the configuration tool. So I did what most customers would do: I called support. They knew exactly what I was talking about and suggested a quick and simple fix. In fact it was so simple that I felt it was necessary to spend the couple minutes required to write it up here on this blog.

In my case, the service was the Captaris Sync Module. The solution was to look in the folder that hosts the executable and then see if there is a file with the same file name with an additional .config extension. So for CapaSync, there is a CapaSync.exe and CapaSync.exe.config. If the service has a .config file and that file happens to have a size of zero bytes, then delete that config file. That’s it! Just start the service and everything should work. It’s a weird problem that should only happen once and more of a weird .NET related problem than something specific to RightFax.

Have you seen this before? Let me know in the comments. If there is anything else you would like us to talk about here, say that in the comments too, or contact me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/technovangelist.