Facsys Administrator Features

Many of the features provided by the Facsys server software and Facsys Administrator program are listed below.

The Facsys Administrator program provides for remote or local management of all fax server events across your corporate enterprise. In a single hierarchical list or "tree view" you can view and manage the fax gateway services, user profiles, fax devices, connection objects, and routing rules for your entire fax network.

With support for Microsoft's System Management Server, installation of the Facsys product is easy even for large corporate installations. System administrators can install the Facsys Desktop client in an organized fashion without the need to physically install the product on hundreds or even thousands of PCs.

The Facsys routing services provide for the ability to create connections to other Facsys servers on your network or across the Internet. Connection cost routing is also available using dial rule properties when rules are bound to a server connection.

NOTE: Facsys Server- to-Server routing will operate as follows:

Facsys incorporates a Facsys Device Service Provider Interface (DSPI) component that communicates directly with manufacturer supplied device drivers. The new DSPI interface greatly simplifies the installation and configuration of fax devices for use with Facsys, and provides a greater support mechanism for troubleshooting fax issues.

On a per user basis, you can force outbound faxes to be approved by a "Facsys Manager." Faxes requiring approval are routed to the Manager for review. After reviewing the outbound message, the manager (or groups of managers) can either approve or deny the pending fax.

"Local" dialing properties defined at the fax server are used by Facsys when sending faxes. When users enter a fax destination number in canonical format, the fax server analyzes the components of the number against its local dialing properties. The fax server then determines automatically whether the destination is a local, long distance, or international call.

To track fax activity for billing purposes, Facsys offers several methods of billing code support. To track personal or departmental billing activity, a billing code can be assigned in a Facsys user's profile. To track fax activity on a customer or destination basis, Facsys users can assign a "recipient" billing code to the fax destinations. When creating a fax, users can assign a billing code to the outbound fax message.

Facsys includes support for Facsys user groups. This feature includes an intuitive interface for managing group members and controlling group access permissions.

The extensive options in a Facsys user profile give administrators the ability to uniquely define routing schemes and permissions appropriate for every Facsys user. From a complete list of permissions, you select the allowable actions.

Before processing outbound fax messages, Facsys verifies that the fax has been sent by an authorized Facsys user. To ensure that all gateway application users have a Facsys user profile on the fax server handling their outbound fax messages, you can enable an 'auto-create' option in the gateway's properties.

To accommodate changing area codes and dialing requirements, you can define "routing rules" for a fax server. These rules automate the process of dial number mapping to a desired connection or fax server or dial number modification. You can also block specific fax numbers and dial strings to prevent outbound faxing to unauthorized or invalid fax destinations.

Facsys offers extensive scheduling capabilities to accommodate international time differences and help you take advantage of off-peak telephone rates. On a per user basis, you can force outbound messages to be sent only during an off-peak time interval defined at the fax server.

The Facsys Administrator includes many pre-defined reports that reflect the activity of a fax server, including user faxing activity, device-related activity, and troubleshooting statistics. In addition to the pre-defined reports included with Facsys, administrators have the ability to create their own custom reports using Crystal Reports 11 .

Facsys provides a Windows authentication option that affects the Facsys logon and the display of the Facsys Logon dialog box. Facsys Desktop users can instruct Facsys to authenticate using their Windows logon or they can force the Facsys prompt for logon information. The Facsys Administrator also authenticates against the Windows logon.

The Facsys print services can monitor Windows print queues and respond to embedded codes within a print stream. When information is sent to the fax server via print services, Facsys extracts the appropriate coded data from the print queue and uses it to prepare outbound fax messages automatically.

Facsys gives users the ability to send and receive faxes using an electronic mail application or gateway service. Facsys supports gateway services for electronic mail systems, network scanners, and electronic voice systems. Current supported gateway services include Facsys SMTP Connector, SAP System R/3, SMTP Notification Gateway, POP3, Network Share/FTP, Lotus Notes, HP Digital Sender 9100C, HP Network ScanJet 5, Novell GroupWise.

To take advantage of existing resources, Facsys lets you import data to populate CSI route information, Facsys user profile data, and Facsys phonebooks. In similar dialog boxes, you can export your Facsys data.

Organizations with a unified messaging system in place gain the ability to integrate fax messaging with voice and other electronic messaging systems. Specific fax message attributes exposed by Facsys include the originator's CSID, the number of pages in the fax, and the fax arrival time. UM systems configured to receive and subsequently route inbound messages can detect the specific fax designations (based on the exposed attributes) and route all fax messages to the Facsys fax server (while all other message types are routed to their corresponding systems).