Manage Inbound Routing with Enterprise Document Management Software

	Cornerstone Communications

Inbound Routing of Faxes

Cornerstone Communications has implemented hundreds of document management solutions worldwide since the mid 1990’s. Along the way our solutions have become much more technologically advanced, especially with the new features of our electronic distribution solution, uDISTRIBUT. The new features of what used to be a simple faxing solution (FaxServer/401) can do much more now than simply send faxes.

Most individuals would think of a fax server as a solution that would just give the ability to send faxes. Cornerstone’s uDISTRIBUT does have that capability, plus a lot more. Most people would agree that they receive just as many faxes as they send out. So, what do you do with all of the inbound faxes that pile up onto your countless fax machines? Let us show you.

What is Inbound Routing?

Inbound routing of faxes is the ability to receive incoming faxes through your phone system and automatically direct them to an email address, printer or an attendant. Cornerstone has the ability to utilize this feature with special fax cards, but the way your current phone system is set up will determine how our document management system is configured. Lets go through the two possible options you have from your phone provider:

Analog Direct Inward Dialing (DID)
Digital Direct Inward Dialing (DID)



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Simple Inbound Routing

As alluded to before, the routing of inbound facsimiles can be achieved through an organizations analog or digital basic phone service. The options of routing destinations include routing to a network printer, routing to an attendant email in box, or routing to a recipient email in box or group of recipient email in boxes. These options can be accomplished through basic routing methods. These basic routing methods can be broken up into the follows two categories:

All received faxes are routed to one destination
All received faxes coming from a single destination

The first option is very simplistic. If a fax is received from anywhere, it is distributed to a similar destination within the organization, such as, a printer or attendant. The second option operates through the capture of the sent faxes number. Joe Smith sends a fax to Company B running Unifier. Unifier captures the phone number of Joe Smith ’s fax machine and then compares it to a routing table. The table will indicate that any facsimiles received from “x” number will be routed to “y” destination. These basic routing methods can work in conjunction with each other.

What is Analog Direct Inward Dialing (DID)?

Analog Direct Inward Dialing (also Analog DID) is a service from your local phone company that allows an organization to have numerous individual phone numbers for each person or workstation in its PBX (Private Branch Exchange) system. They run off of a small block of dedicated telephone numbers. DID allows multiple lines to be connected to the PBX at once, without requiring each to have a physical line connecting to the PBX. With this service you will only be able to receive calls and/or faxes.

For example, an organization has 25 employees and each employee has a separate telephone number or extension within its physical location. A company can rent 10 physical trunk lines (communication channel between two-points) from the telephone company that will allow 10 phone calls to take place simultaneously. If all 10 lines were in use and someone was trying to make an inbound call, they would get either a busy signal or be channeled into a voice mail system. A DID system does not require a PBX operator and can be used for fax and voice transmissions.

There are a couple of ways you could have your phone line this setup. One way would be to have one telephone number to one or more analog DID lines. This would be a good setup for an 800-fax number for the entire company. You could also have multiple telephone numbers to one or more analog DID lines. This would be a good setup for the employees to receive faxes.

What is Digital Direct Inward Dialing (DID)?

Digital Direct Inward Dialing (also Digital DID) provides the same capability as the Analog DID, but with the added function to place outbound calls. This allows you to send and receive across the same trunks. Since this is a digital feature, the use of channels from your T1 is required. You will also need to use special digital cards that can interface with your T1.

What is the Cost Difference Between Analog Direct Inward Dialing and Digital Direct Inward Dialing?

As you can see, the diagram below shows the difference between receiving faxes through a standard fax machine and Unifier ’s uDISTRIBUT is $0.523 per page. Depending on how many faxes are received on a yearly basis, these costs can really add up. Say for example that you receive 200 one-page faxes a day. 200 pages multiplied by $0.523 is equal to $104.60 per day (for inound faxing alone). This would cost you $25,104.00 per year. The Gartner Group says it best, “printed corporate documents are growing at the annual rate of 22%. Every 4 years document cost double.”

Is Inbound Routing Right For You?

As you can see, the diagram below shows the difference between receiving faxes through a standard fax machine and Unifier ’s is $0.523 per page. Depending on how many faxes are received on a yearly basis, these costs can really add up. Say for example that you receive 200 one-page faxes a day. 200 pages multiplied by $0.523 is equal to $104.60 per day (for inound faxing alone). This would cost you $25,104.00 per year. The Gartner Group says it best, It is very clear that a manual strategy of receiving facsimiles via a stand-alone fax machine is not only costly, but also inefficient. Enabling received faxes to be electronically routed to the recipient's desktop with zero expenditure of hard or soft cost is much more advantageous. Which inbound fax routing solution is right for your organization is the real question.

To clear up the options of receiving via Analog, Analog DID, Digital or Digital DID Cornerstone Communications has perfected a transaction document assessment. This consulting engagement would provide a blue print of your current manual document processes to the automatic routing of your inbound faxes. This assessment is thorough, but brief. It will specifically identify areas where costs are excessive and give recommendations on how to reduce or eliminate those costs. Armed with this financial information you will be able to make the necessary and appropriate business decisions.

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