From reading our most recent blog post, “How Cloud Faxing Works”, you should have a fairly good understanding of, not only, how cloud faxing can work for your company, but also of the technical rationale behind it. eFax Corporate offers businesses a wide range of flexible fax solutions and add-ons that will positively impact your company’s overall communication processes.
For now, let’s focus on the types of practical solutions eFax Corporate can offer your business and how you and your employees can seamlessly integrate cloud-based faxing into your day-to-day workflow, in addition to sending and receiving faxes through your office email accounts.
1. Secure Faxing
Internet and data security are paramount in today’s online landscape and should be a prerequisite when it comes to your company’s overall communication process.
As such, eFax Corporate provides numerous additional layers of security and protection. For example, with eFax Secure, instead of being sent directly to your email inbox, your received faxes will be held on a separate, secure and fully encrypted website that requires a password to access. In this scenario, only the intended recipient and designated system administrator would have access to this secure site.
eFax Corporate and eFax Secure also offer a feature known as Transport Layer Security (TLS) version 1.2 to encrypt faxes when they are “in-motion,” such as when they are being transmitted or received over an Internet connection. Encryption prevents faxes from being read by anyone other than the intended recipient who has the only ‘key’ that can unlock the document and make it intelligible once again. Due to the strength of its encryption cyphers, TLS 1.2 is the recommended security standard for compliance with government regulations protecting the privacy of data communications.
2. Cloud Faxing From Multifunction Printers (MFPs)
Multifunction printers (MFPs) are one of the most instantly recognisable tools in the offices of today. Offering printing, scanning and fax services all in one machine, they’ve become an indispensable tool for many offices across the UK and further afield.
Thankfully, moving your business communications network over to cloud faxing doesn’t mean you have to relegate your MFP to the scrapyard. Instead, many cloud-based services provide the option of fully integrating your multifunction printer with cloud-based faxing services.
A perfect example of how the two can be successfully integrated is if or when an employee needs to send a fax with a unique signature. This is a commonly required formality in certain service contracts. In such instances, the signature is needed for authorisation purposes.
When this occurs, documents can be placed on your MFP and then you can simply send the fax much in the same way that you would with a regular an email message from the machine. The service can be configured so that return faxes will go automatically to your email inbox and not to the MFP, unless of course you want them to.
Furthermore, because your company’s faxes are being sent via a cloud-based fax account, a detailed record of your fax history will be automatically maintained, meaning your fax usage can be easily audited for legal and compliance purposes.
Without a cloud-fax service, MFPs need to be hooked up to phone lines in order to send faxes, which can add significant costs to the communication system’s overall outlay. Line rental could cost your business anything up to £50 or more a month. It is also highly likely that your company will need to rent separate lines for each individual device, causing bills to pile up exponentially.
With a cloud-based fax service, the need for a dedicated fax line is removed due to the fact that your MFP will be Internet-enabled and capable of connecting to the cloud through your business’ local area network.
In the most practical of terms, this means that not only will your business save a considerable amount of money by disconnecting the analogue fax lines that were once needed for each machine, but your company can also repurpose and increase the value of the existing hard-wired office equipment. Learn more about MFP integration with cloud fax.
3. Integrate Your CRM with Cloud Faxing
In order to take your company’s staff’s productivity to the next level, you should consider integrating and embedding your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications, such as Salesforce for example, with your eFax Corporate account. This is an inventive way in which to streamline your company’s faxing communication as well as boosting overall staff productivity.
Although this type of integration might seem like a complex and time-consuming undertaking, it is actually fairly simple to organise and, with right cloud fax provider, like eFax Corporate, can be achieved quite easily. An Application Program Interface (API) will be provided to you, which can then be easily integrated with any CRM, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system or a multitude of business applications. In addition to this, the APIs can work with any type of coding language, e.g. C++, Java, .NET, Python, etc.
For companies whose employees are required to create documents in CRM tools or have Electronic Health Records (EHR) which must be sent by fax (such as healthcare professionals), this process is a great way to save huge amounts of time and increase efficiencies.
With a cloud fax capability embedded into your Salesforce or other software, your company’s staff will be able to fax the necessary materials whilst using the application. This removes one step in the overall process as it eliminates the need to have to print or scan the document followed by faxing it.
Due to the fact that your faxing API is tied to your individual account, your company’s cloud fax account, along with all of its activity, is securely saved and readily available for use in your usage reports. This extra service allows your IT team to better track the company’s overall faxing activities, while keeping records in an efficient and accountable manner.
4. Integrate Internet Faxing with SAP Applications
Is your business working with an enterprise resource management (ERM) system, which is based on the software by SAP (System Applications Products)? If so, the following is one way in which to increase the overall value of your internet faxing services and improve the day-to-day workflow of your employees.
As a fully certified SAP partner, eFax Corporate can fully optimise your business communications by embedding faxes from directly within the SAP setting which your internal staff members use on a daily basis.
eFax Corporate’s innovative business solution, the SAP Fax Connector 2.0, will forward your faxes as SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) messages (email) that securely and instantly travel across the Internet to eFax Corporate, where your messages are converted to fax image format for delivery to your intended fax recipients. Delivery Status Notification (DSN) emails are sent from eFax back to the fax message origin in SAP, where they are routed to the proper module and the user logs updated accordingly.
Much like integrating your faxing protocols with your multifunction printer (MFP), combining your SAP software with your cloud faxing provider means you can immediately improve the overall efficiency of your staff.
By removing numerous and often-times unnecessary steps in the faxing process, your employees can create and send any important documents they create within their SAP sessions.
5. Cloud Faxing From Mobile Devices
In terms of today’s modern business environment, remote working of employees has never been more prominent and has become a vital aspect of many an emerging business’ growth. Employees who have to work with international offices or clients are often required to work across multiple time zones and make themselves available to work on the go when the need arises, often at very short notice.
For businesses where employees are widely distributed across different geographies, who frequently conduct their business on the move or simply work remotely from home, another much more reliable and secure method of communication is required. More to the point, this method of communication must work seamlessly via a mobile application such as a tablet or smartphone.
We are now even more reliant on our mobiles than ever, and thanks to eFax Corporate’s agile mobile app, faxing on the go has never been more simple or efficient. eFax Corporate’s app distils the core functions of your cloud faxing service into an intuitive, convenient and secure interface. The application enables your company to send, receive, view and forward any faxes right away and from the convenience of your mobile smartphone or tablet device. You can even take a picture of a document, add a signature to it, and send it as a fax, right from your mobile device.
This means there’s no need to run around looking for a 3rd party or outside source which offers a faxing service. Faxing can happen anytime and virtually from anywhere, as long as there is internet available in the area.
This excellent versatility is just one of the many reasons why cloud faxing should be considered a priority for your business. It is perhaps no coincidence then that cloud faxing just so happens to be one of the preferred communication methods among the majority of the Fortune 500 corporations.
A pioneer within the faxing industry for more than 20 years, eFax Corporate offers a great range of useful tools, support and service. eFax Corporate will allow your company to send and receive its faxes using all of the aforementioned methods and technologies, ensuring that our service is extremely beneficial to your company’s business objectives.
If you have any questions regarding our cloud faxing services, please contact an eFax Corporate representative today.
Learn more about why you should choose eFax Corporate.