This is a "is it possible?" question...

A customer asked if it's possible to use their fax server to send customer account statements to customer-provided fax numbers.

This is how our customer works it out right now:

The fax server: A Windows PC with Microsoft Shared Fax application. This server creates a virtual printer which actually sends the documents via fax instead of printing them.

Then this virtual printer is shared among the client PCs on the LAN vía the standard Windows NETBIOS/NETBEUI protocol.

Client PCs just map this remote printer and their users (call center agents) send the customer-requested account statements to "print" to that shared virtual printer.

In order to automate the process of generating/sending information via fax, I plan to invoke a web service that would generate the information to a TXT or PDF file (interacting with the information system) and returns me the route and filename of the generated file (probably in an also shared directory somewhere). Then I guessed I would be able to "print" this document to the shared-printer/fax on the Windows fax server and be done with it.

So, I searched for a Print step in TeleFlow, so as to parametrize it to use at least the "default printer" defined in the Windows server where TeleFlow is running, but found none... I guess it's not possible to print a TXT or PDF document from within TeleFlow to a Windows local or shared printer resource in order to use this fax server.

So:
- Can I just use one or two ports in a NMS CG 6060 11-2L/2TE board to send out faxes? Assume this board has at least one incoming T1 connection from a PBX... Should I use standard-analog lines on the outbound lines so as to send faxes?
- Can I send PDF documents or just TXT files via this NMS board?
- Or should I use an additional fax board (hopefuly for PDFs as well)?

Thanks in advance,

TeleFlow does not have a print step, however, you could use its Run Program step to run an external program to print using the (DOS/Windows) console Print command. You could also create a batch or command file with whatever printing commands you want and use the Run Program step to call that batch file.

That might be the easiest solution to your problem.

The NMS CG boards do support faxing. Firstly, faxing can consume a lot of resources, so you may need a board with more DSP power. You should consider, instead, the NMS CG 6060/16-2L/2TE board.

NMS boards and software will only fax TIFF-F files, so you will need a conversion utility to convert your TXT or PDF files to TIFF-F. Engenic has a product called "FaxBuilder" that works with TXT, BMP and (I think) JPG.

We've had some success turning MS Word documents into TIFF-F, and so I think that PDF might be possible. I don't know how that was done (I wasn't involved in that project). I do know that it involved a lot of steps and some manual intervention. There would be work on someone's part to turn this into an automatic process. Perhaps Adobe has something that could turn a PDF into a TIFF-F? Engenic can offer engineering time, if you wish to go this route. Contact sales@engenic.com for more information.

You can fax out with NMS hardware on either analog or digital circuits. It doesn't matter. If resource costs are an issue, there may be some advantage to creating a separate server for faxing using an AG 2000 and up to 8 analog lines.

I guess your suggestion to use one model or another lies in the fact that I may divide the channels as 12 for incoming calls and 11 for outbound faxing, assuming a heavy-faxing scenario.

However, would it make a difference to use the NMS CG 6060/16-2L/2TE board if I only reserve 2 ports for ocassional outbound faxing? I guess the resource consumption would not be that different with such a few channels for outbound faxing...

About the FaxBuilder application... Where can I download it for testing? Should our customer license it as well for a production environment? What's the license cost?

About the Run Program step: I wonder why this step does not include the ability to pass parameters to the program/batch file to be called... If I generate account statements to a shared directory from a web service, it would be quite helpful to be able to invoke the .CMD batch file with the filename to be printed as a parameter. Can this be implemented into the Run Program step?

Thanks in advance,

If you are only running a single T1 on a CG 6060/11-2L/2TE board, then it should have enough resources for 2 channels or 11 of outbound faxing.

If decide to expand to 2 T1's you *may* have resource issues, even if you're only configuring 2 ports of faxing. To be safe, I would recommend the /16 board.

Hmm... Its been a while since I've worked with FaxBuilder. I will check with our sales team to find out the answers to your questions.

You can pass parameters to the Run Program step. In the "External program to run" field, fill in the entire command line, just as if you were entering it at a command prompt. For example:

print myfile.txt

If you have spaces in any of your parameters, then you should enclose the entire parameter in double quotes like so:

print "my spacey file.txt"

I just tried out some proof-of-concept tests to see if a simple "print %1" in a .CMD file would work from TeleFlow, however it seems that the DOS session in Windows XP is unable to "see" Windows Printers as accesible devices under DOS...

The PRINT command accepts a device name or port in the /d parameter, but this does not work with Windows printers, particularly with remotely-shared printers like those of the Microsoft Shared Fax server.

The MODE command can list the devices that PRINT can access and/or modify, and they are limited to LPT and COM ports, besides the CONsole

Then I tried using Internet Explorer to print the HTML file I want to print... seems IExplorer.exe does not support command line options either

I will try invoking Adobe Reader to print a PDF file, but I'd like to know if you have another suggestion for this...

--> Update: Does not work either

Partial solution: "net use lpt1: \\server\sharedprintername". This maps the local LPT1 port to the local or remote Windows printer, which could be a fax device as well. The PRINT command can then be executed just fine and the printing works as long as the document being printed is a standard text file... I sent an HTML file and it printed OK, but as source code ("<html>...</html>", no rendering at all ).



Shauna just told me that FaxBuilder is not longer supported, so I'm not sure I want to use it for a production environment...



I just tried out a few commercial applications that convert HTMLs to TIFF-F files, but the results were not acceptable.

Did you use FaxBuilder to turn .DOCs into TIFF-Fs? Can you put me in contact with someone involved in that process, so as to try out that alternative, just for testing?

Thanks in advance.

Under the circumstances, I would recommend you try Fax Builder. It is true that we are not actively supporting it, but this means that it is not getting any upgrades to its functionality. It still works as well as it always has. I have spoken to the powers that be, and found that we can offer you FaxBuilder free of any licensing, but you'd have to contract us if you need support for it.

You can download FaxBuilder from this link:

http://www.engenic.com/library/FaxBuilder.zip

There is no installer. Simply create an appropriate folder, and extract all the files into it. Documentation is included as an old-school Windows .hlp file. Look for FaxBuilder.hlp.

FaxBuilder will turn a .txt file into a .TIFF-F. It also supports images as .BMP and (I think) .JPG. After you have the .TIFF-F, you can fax it through whatever service you want, but given the problems with running the print command external to TeleFlow, I recommend that you Fax through an NMS card. You will need a software update to TeleFlow Enterprise and corresponding licenses. We can provide you with a temporary license, so that you can test, and you can purchase an non-expiring license for your client. Please contact sales@engenic.com to obtain the links and licenses.