OpenText Fax & Document Distribution Group

Words, ideas, technologies, people and even food travel greater distances more quickly every day. Some things translate perfectly between cultures, and HIMSS is hoping that will be the case for a new partnership announced May 2 with the British Computing Society (BCS).

The HIMSS electronic medical record adoption model (EMRAM) has already seen great success in both US and Canadian healthcare systems, and now it’s time to see if the same approach can work for hospitals and other healthcare institutions in Britain’s public health network, the National Health Service (NHS).

The program is especially important in the US as healthcare institutions approach the 2015 deadline to comply with the meaningful use requirements set down by the 2009 HITECH Act. The act requires healthcare providers to implement the broad use of electronic medical records (EMR) in an effort to improve patient care. HITECH provides incentives for compliance, and fines for failure.

Based on comments made in the HIMSS press release, both parties seem eager to get started.

BCS Health Chair Matthew Swindells had this to say: “We’re delighted to be working with HIMSS Analytics Europe on this project. We believe information and technology are crucial to the challenge of transforming our healthcare service. The HIMSS Analytics EMRAM model will enable hospitals to measure their progress in the implementation of health IT and benchmark themselves against the rest of the NHS and internationally.”

To ensure the program is appropriately structured and targeted, HIMSS Europe and BCS have formed a steering committee of British healthcare experts including health IT leaders, medical professionals and scholars.

Agencies like NHS Connecting for Health have been trying for many years to come up with a way to centralize and digitize patient records and connect some 30,000 providers to 300 hospitals across Great Britain. Due to several challenges including cost and unstable management, none have yet been able to do so.

HIMSS monitors health IT adoption in 25 countries, and rates institutions on a seven-point scale that grades their “meaningful use” of new technologies to improve patient care. To date, HIMSS has identified only 68 Stage 7 institutions worldwide. A Stage 7 facility is a “fully digitized, virtually paperless environment with a broad range of interoperability and data exchange capabilities with other organizations.” Just 1.2 percent of US hospitals earn that grade, and about 70 percent are still Stage 3 or lower. HIMSS has recognized 15 Stage 7 institutions in Europe as a whole, but have not yet identified any in Great Britain.

OpenText’s Fax and Document Delivery Group (FDDG) follows HIMSS closely because of the central role of fax in the exchange of EMR including protected health information (PHI). To address the requirements of meaningful use, many physicians and healthcare organizations (including NHS Manchester) have turned to an automated software-based electronic fax delivery system to manage sensitive patient records.

Continued improvements in fax over IP (FoIP) technology have brought the security and reliability of fax transactions to the desktop, and even to mobile devices. With most health IT professionals citing cost as the biggest barrier to EMR adoption, the immediate savings on paper and the time saved by automating fax from a single central, searchable server makes fax an ideal solution for healthcare.

Countless businesses use Microsoft Office 365 for everything from email and calendar services to document access and collaboration. They have already shown their smarts and thriftiness by reducing onsite hardware and software and working in the cloud. So why are some still relying on paper-based faxing and the expensive hardware, supplies and maintenance it requires? Maybe they don’t know about RightFax or Fax Appliance.

OpenText helps thousands of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) around the world manage and deliver their business-critical documents. We have dozens of integration options with the most common back-office and other applications has made it extremely attractive to people who don’t want to buy (or learn) new software. One of the most popular recent integrations is with Office 365.

By integrating Fax Appliance or RightFax with Office 365, customers enjoy immediate upfront savings, increased security, and less time shuffling back and forth between workstations and shared standalone fax machines. In cases where sensitive and/or legally binding documents are required to be sent to third parties, fax machines in public areas produce highly visible paper documents and pose a serious risk to information security – potentially resulting in hefty regulatory fines. Our solutions allow you to manage user roles and permissions and fax from your desktop to erase this threat.

We have seen significant benefits for customers who use OpenText’s rich integration with O365. These include:

• More productive employees: No more time-consuming printing, manual faxing, and tracking.

• Lower telecom, paper, and equipment costs: Consolidate phone resources for faxing and stop paying for fax paper, cartridges, and machine maintenance, eliminate costs for filing, long-term archival and manual retrieval of paper faxes.

• Less fax preparation: Any that can be printed can be faxed.

• Improved efficiency: Send higher quality communication more quickly by faxing directly from  Office 365 via Print-to-Fax or email.

• PDF routing: Route incoming faxes to  Office 365 as PDF attachments.

• MFP integration: Fax through our fax solutions without purchasing phone lines and costly fax kits for multiple MFPs.

• Improved audit, compliance, and legal readiness: Audit trails are legally recognized making it easy to provide proof of compliance.

• Document centralization: Keep all your communications in one place by using the  Office 365 email client to send and receive faxes.

• Support of green initiatives: Save trees (and money) by getting rid of a lot of paper.

That’s just what I can think of off the top of my head – basically, if you’re a SMB that uses Office 365 and also needs to fax, OpenText can help. If savings and security alone aren’t enough to pique your interest learn more about the benefits and integration listing from Fax Appliance and RightFax.

Are YOU on Google+? In case you haven’t seen it, Google has a new online property that’s taking the world by storm. Is it a Twitter killer? A Facebook Killer? I don’t know, perhaps its’s too early to tell, but it certainly has a lot to offer.

About a week ago, they opened Google+ to businesses, whereas before that it was just for real human beings with real names. Businesses can have pages just like on Facebook. The pages are a bit different than the Facebook variety, but all of it is so new, what I say here today may change tomorrow. All that I can say for certain is that if you are not there yet, you should be. And now that everyone can join without an invite, there is just no excuse to not join in.

The Fax & Document Distribution Group has a page on Google+ now. When you get onto plus.google.com, do a search for FDDG (the full name is OpenText FDDG Videos and Training). Or just click on this link to go right there. Then add us to one of your Circles.

Whenever we post anything to our Google+ page, you will see the message in your main Google Plus page. Go look around for your friends as well and add them to your circles. Then you will see news from everyone. On the left you can click on individual circles to filter down the news. I have circles for co-workers at OpenText, for people in FDDG, and for those in my department at the company. I also have circles for friends from when I was at Microsoft, and at other companies, and photographers I find interesting. How you create your circles is really up to you. Then when you decide to share something, you can share it with only certain circles.

One of the most exciting things for us on Google+ is the idea of a Hangout. This is like a multi-way video conference. You can have a bunch of people (for now its up to 10) join in on a hangout. We might have a hangout to just talk about RightFax or Alchemy. Or we might interview someone, maybe a partner or someone interesting inside OpenText we though you might like to meet. Who knows?

Its a new platform and the first few times we try it, it might not work. But if you would like to join us for the first experiment, add our page to one of your circles. I’ll post the link to the hangout there. At a minimum, I will be on there (this is Matt Williams posting), and Joshua Butcher is planning to be there as well. If you join you can ask us a question about anything you like. I am thinking its going to be on Tuesday at a time thats not too inconvenient for both the US and Europe. But you’ll have to watch for the announcement on Google+ for the precise details. If you aren’t one of the first 10 to join, don’t worry. I plan on streaming the hangout on Livestream.com as well, but the details for that will be on Google. You’ll also be able to post questions to Twitter.

I look forward to seeing you add us to your circles. I’ll then add you to our circles so that I can see what you are up to as well (if you choose to share any news with us). And look out for the posting on Monday or Tuesday morning at the latest. And then we will see each other on the Hangout.

See you then!

The new Fax Appliance Feature Pack 2 for Fax Appliance A102 and A104 is now available.  The OpenText Fax Appliance family of plug and play products is designed to simplify overall deployment and use while providing a cost effective alternative to MFP fax kits as well as traditional fax boards and remote fax servers.   We’ve made quite a few changes based on the key capabilities requested by our customers to further enhance our Fax Appliance.

Here is a snapshot of just a few of the new features:

• Receive faxes in PDF file format
• Cloud-based email support (e.g. Google Apps)
• Import contacts to shared phonebook
• Import phonebook entries from FaxPress
• And many more exciting features 

For the complete Fax Appliance feature list, please visit: http://fax-appliance.com/features/

You can also attend the Nov. 1 webinar to learn more.  Register here.

For additional information, please visit www.fax-appliance.com.

Recently I visited with Ricoh Netherlands to get a better idea of how they integrate with the RightFax MFP Module. It was a fascinating. After the end-user walks up to the device and provides their credentials, they can tweak almost every setting they would have access to in the full FaxUtil client. They can enter cover sheet notes, complete destination information, and much much more.

It really is impressive and I encourage you to look in to their solutions. But first watch my video on the topic:

Just before the Global Fax Summit, I drove over to Amstelveen in the Netherlands where I live to visit with HP at their offices. My purpose was to collect footage of a person using an HP MFP to send a fax. What with GFS, getting sick, and other projects, I only just recently had a chance to edit it down to a nice video. So here it is.

What you’ll see in this video is a simple scenario of walking up to the MFP, scanning in a document, and pressing send. Regardless of whether I have a single MFP or hundreds, configuration in RightFax is incredibly simple and the EDC Monitor allows the admin to watch the entire process of sending the fax.

When the user walks up to the MFP, they can be logged in automatically as a generic “WALKUP” user, enter in their credentials using the number pad or touchscreen, or use the SafeCom system which requires them to simply swipe their access card. SafeCom makes the process of sending a fax even easier than before. Its pretty cool.

Watch the video and let me know what you think of it here in the comments.

OpenText RightFax exhibited at Cisco Live 2011 in Las Vegas, NV from 7/10 to 7/14.  As a Preferred Solution Developer member in the Cisco Solution Developer Network (CDN), OpenText RightFax is a recognized leader in providing IP faxing solutions to Cisco clients and partners.  This year’s exhibit hall discussions included our completed RightFax and CUCM 8.x interoperability, as well as our recently certified RightFax 10 Branch Office interoperability with the Cisco UCS Express/SRE-V platform.  The combined Cisco and OpenText RightFax solution supports organizational requirements at the branch office where application survivability and compliancy are requirements. 

Cisco Live was a great success for OpenText and we were able to discuss RightFax with existing clients, interested organizations, and partners alike.  Telecom Reseller took an interest as well.  Listen to the Telecom Resller podcast/interview.

Learn more about RightFax at www.rightfax.com.

We have a large number of products that we integrate with. One of the more important integrations is with SAP. Our customers use SAP for a wide range of applications, including performance management, governance, risk, and compliance, ERP, product lifecycle management, and more. These solutions generate all sorts of documents, like purchase orders, bills of lading, invoices, and all sorts of other documents I never heard of. Just as there are many ways to use SAP, there are many ways we can integrate with SAP. One of those is the SAP Connector. Once thats installed, you can send a fax just like creating any other kind of document. For more about our SAP integration, check out this video I made about the SAP Connector back in April.

Let me know what you think of this video. You can either leave comments on this post, at the YouTube site, or using twitter. You can find me at twitter.com/technovangelist

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.

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.