OpenText Fax & Document Distribution Group

In the whirlwind of holiday cheer and shopping, I’m back to discuss something else exciting—the recent changes to Delegates Manager.  In my September blog post I covered just how to use the Delegates Manager; today I will cover three feature updates:

• Management tab now has been updated to contain
  • “Manage” area for adding, updating, and deleting existing delegates
  • “Copy” area for provisioning new and existing delegates
  • New report export type called “Simple CSV”
    • This is a one line export for each delegate instance which allows for easier back end integration and a condensed format for importing into other tools

Manage tab

Below you can see the updated “Manage” tab which contains instructions on key functions that can be performed.  The “New Delegate” control has been changed to a populated pull down that helps to eliminate potential typing issues.  This means you can add, update, and delete delegates from this tab.

With the addition of the “Copy” tab, the “Manage” tab can be used to create a template user and then the “Copy” tab can be used to provision other users using the template user.

Copy tab

This new tab’s purpose is to allow an administrator to copy a template user’s complete set of delegate instances/permissions onto one or more users.  This provides a powerful means for provisioning new and existing users with a standard set of delegates.  This area also has an information block that provides an overview on how this works for easier administration.

What do we mean by provisioning?  This means you can setup a user and assign all necessary delegates to that account.  Whenever you want to provision a new user or update an existing user, you can use this template account and push its delegates to new and existing target users.

As part of provisioning the target users, Delegates Manager removes all existing delegates that the target users have configured before proceeding with the updated provisioning.  This ensures the new and updated users contain only the delegates that the administrator wants them to have.

Simple CSV export

This is a new export format for the reporting feature (covered in my first blog on the Delegates Manager).  As you remember, the CSV export allows you to select users to report on as well as allowing you to choose the report type.  We can then generate a report that appears as a grid for initial review.

If you would like to export this data, you can select a format and click “Export”.  The supported formats are:

• PDF
• Excel
• XPS
• Simple CSV

“Simple CSV” is a comma separated list export.  Unlike the other export formats, this format contains only users with delegates; and all the details regarding each delegate is on one line.  Only users with actual delegates appear; if you run your report on users without delegates, they will not appear in this export. 

This format allows a condensed report to be imported into other tools and provides another means to import the data into back end systems.

The format is fully documented in our updated user guide.

So that’s it, the three most recent changes to the Delegates Manager, just in time for the holidays.  The revised manage tab, the added copy tab for provisioning and the new export feature for reporting which allows better back end integration are the three most recent changes to the Delegates Manager—just in time for the holidays.  I look forward to seeing you in January to let you know what else Professional Services has to help make your job easier.

To request a copy of the Delegates Manager, an evaluation license or to learn more about Professional Services, please contact fddg.ps@opentext.com.

Brian Langbecker, Sr. Solutions Engineer

If you’ve ever wondered how to:

• Manage individual delegates via one tool
• Import and export delegate settings
• Run reporting on delegates

I’ve got good news for you.  Delegates Manager is a fax solution offering that allows administrators to handle all three of these tasks.  Today’s blog will focus on just how to make the most of this solution.

Managing individual delegates…

One of the first ways you can use the Delegates Manager is to manage individual delegates.  After logging into the tool as administrator you select a tab called “Management”.

Next, you select a user you want to manage.  At this point you will be able to see which RightFax users have access to the user you selected. 

This is also where you can add a new delegate as well as choose what permissions they have by selecting the check boxes and click the appropriate button to apply the settings.  And of course, if necessary, you can also delete a delegate from here.

Import and export delegates…

If you select the “Import/Export” tab and you can:

• Export delegates from a server
• Import delegates from a server
• Export delegates from a server and periodically restore settings to overwrite user updates

Exporting is pretty easy and can be completed by selecting a combination of groups and users and then clicking “Start Export”.  Sensitive information?  No problem; you can encrypt the file for security purposes.  And the file being exported is in XML format which allows third-party applications to create XML export files.

Once you are done exporting you can logout of the current RightFax server, log in to a new RightFax server and import the delegates settings.   This keeps the delegates settings the same between RightFax servers and allows it to function as a master server with properly setup delegates permissions.

Word of caution: the Delegates Manager will only import the settings of users that it can find on the destination server based on their user name.  It will then update existing delegates permissions to match the exported settings so that they are identical.  Information on conflicts with missing users between the export and import systems are displayed on the screen and extensive logging is placed in the event log.

Reporting on delegates…

Lastly, we have a module that allows for reporting on delegates.  These reports can then be exported in a variety of formats.  This is also the only feature discussed today that can be run as a non-administrator.  As an administrator, however,  you can report on delegates for the entire RightFax server whereas a non-administrator can only report on the delegates for the RightFax group they are a member of.

Much like the “Import/Export” tab, you select the users and groups you want to report on.

When you select “Generate Report” it will display a generated report on the screen that you can then print or export in to your chosen format; including PDF, excel, and XPS.

To recap, Delegates Manager can:

• Manage individual delegates
• Import and export delegate settings
• Run reporting on delegates

What’s next?  Part two will dive into specific use cases for the Delegates Manager.

The fact sheet for the Delegates Manager can be found below:

 https://knowledge.opentext.com/knowledge/llisapi.dll/Open/19032063

Please note, the Delegates Manager is a licensed solution and evaluation copies are available.

To request a copy of the Delegates Manager, an evaluation license or to learn more about Professional Services, please contact captaris.sales@opentext.com.

In my May blog titled “A New Web Service in Town”, I introduced the release of RightFax Web Services—now available through OpenText Professional Services.  In this blog, I’ll tackle the question of how to send a fax in light of the simple and user friendly nature of RightFax Web Services.   

There are many ways to send a fax programmatically…using, for example, COM API, FCL, XML API, Java API and embedded codes.  Each has its own purposes but most are fairly complex and require custom APIs to be installed, print drivers, or the RightFax Production Module to be running.

When using C# (Java is just as easy) and our RightFax Web Services, however, things become much simpler.

Assuming you already have installed RightFax Web Services, the best way to learn this is to work with the NetFormsSample provided with the software.  For the purposes of this blog, I am running the RightFax Web Services on my development environment. 

I begin by adding the Sending Service to my project. 

This is already done in the sample. This is being shown for illustrative purposes only.

The result is that I’ve created a proxy (see below) and all the necessary classes and methods required for sending a fax have been made available to my sample.

The first coding step is to create a “ContractConnection” object with tells RightFax Web Services what RightFax Server to use and the credentials to access the RightFax Server.

Let’s discuss this a little further.

I then need tell it what “FaxServer” to use, what “UserName” and what authentication to use. I’ve left the password blank as I am using a test system with no password.  This sample code above is taken straight out of the sample and the class and objects are fully documented in the documentation we provide, as well.

The second step is to create my fax object and add a sample document that I want to fax.

All I am doing is creating the fields that are required for sending a fax, “ToFaxNumber” and “ToName”.  Then update your coversheet settings (optional). 

Next, I input who is sending the fax in “OwnerId” (Optional).  Lastly we deal with attachments—you can have as many attachments as RightFax allows.  This code is taken straight out of the sample, as well.

Success!  I have successfully created my Fax object.  All that’s left to do is send the fax. 

Sample code is below:

So let’s recap what we did:

·         We added a web service reference

·         We created a connection object

·         We created a fax

·         We sent a fax

…in a small amount of code.

We did not need to install an API on every instance where our custom code runs, or drop a file somewhere with embedded codes, or add a printer.

That is it…that is all we needed to do to send a fax!!

Coming up next: tracking what you sent in “I Just Sent a Fax, How Do I Know If It Was Faxed Successfully?”

As a member of the OpenText Professional Services team, I spend a lot of my time speaking with customers on the phone. In a recent conversation, the topic of web services for RightFax came up. Our customer was commenting that they could “really use a web services-based way to fax.”

Our answer? We agree. Due to the interest and inquiries about web services for RightFax, we’ve made the decision to go ahead and build RightFax Web Services.

Through OpenText Professional Services,web services for RightFax are now available. The RightFax Web Services are based on .NET and support both .NET clients as well as Java clients.

The basic design philosophy is simple. Let’s build a set of web services that .NET and Java (and other languages and frameworks) can use to send and retrieve faxes, metadata and attachments. We wanted it to be simpleand easy for you to use and consume.

Our new RightFax Web Services enable web-based capabilities to:

• Send a fax
• Retrieve a fax
• Delete a fax
• Route a fax
• Forward a fax
• Get a list of RightFax users

…just to name a few things.

The RightFax Web Services is not entirely new though. It was a key component of the Content Server Fax Connector (built by OpenText Professional Services) and grew out of ideas from our SharePoint Connector for RightFax so although it is a newly packaged offering it has been extensively tested and has been expanded, simplified and re-purposed for use by frameworks like .NET and J2EE.

As a customer, you might ask: Why should I use this? I can just use the COM API or a different RightFax API.

Well, that is true…but our web services are simpler and easier to use:

• You no longer need to install FaxUtil and learn a complex API to support faxing.
• You can use HTTP or an alternative protocol to connect to RightFax.
• It provides a simple way to send a fax from a web client.
• It supports your mandate to make your enterprise applications support SOA (service oriented architecture).
• And it enables basic faxing while allowing you to avoid learning an API.

So your next question might be: “Where can I get these web services? And when can I start using them?”

For existing Developer Program customers, the answer is easy: you can download RightFax Web Services from the link below. It comes with extensive samples for .NET and Java, a detailed CHM, and more to name a few. Follow the instructions to get a 30 day license.

https://knowledge.opentext.com/knowledge/llisapi.dll/fetch/2001/15080935/-15106263/15106294/16592199/16592869/16594625/CustomView.html?func=ll&objId=16594625&objAction=browse&viewType=1

For any other questions about RightFax Web Services or to learn more about Professional Services, please contact captaris.sales@opentext.com.

Still have questions? You can view the fact sheet here:

https://knowledge.opentext.com/knowledge/llisapi.dll/fetch/2001/3551166/16512673/15703283/16881652/customview.html?func=ll&objId=16881652&objAction=browse&viewType=1

Stay tuned for my next blog: “I Need to Send a Fax, How Hard Can It Be?” where I’ll show you just how simple it is to send a fax with the RightFax Web Services.