Article overview:
What Is Online Cloud Faxing?
- Online faxing
- Fax via email
- Internet faxing
Online cloud faxing completely replaces the need for a physical fax machine. All documents and files are sent and received digitally, rather than over analog lines. Carry on sending fax to physical fax machines without having to own a fax machine yourself.
Why and How to Use Online Cloud-Faxing for Your Organisation
Why use online cloud faxing over physical fax machines? The benefits include:
- Fax document security is increased through high-level encryption and access controls
- There is no need for resource expenditure on toner, ink and maintenance
- The process of sending and receiving fax is made much quicker and more efficient
- Fax documents can be sent while working remotely
- You can maintain important functionality associated with fax transmission, such as legal document sharing and instant submission/reception of visual files
- Fax can be saved and easily accessed through online document management systems
- Multiple fax numbers can be assigned to a single account, simplifying transmission.
Switching to eFax services is simple. Our solutions can quickly and easily be integrated into your current work environment.
How do you make the move to online cloud faxing?
- Step 1 — Sign up to eFax using our free trial
- Step 2 — Register your account and current fax numbers with us
- Step 3 — Download our bespoke software to access eFax’s online portal
- Step 4 — Ditch your physical fax machine and start sending digital faxes immediately
The process really is that simple!
Learn More! Read the Full Story Below
So, what is cloud fax? For many organisations, cloud fax services are a fairly vague concept. Terms such as “internet fax”, “fax via email,” “online faxing” and “the cloud” often appear online, but what many companies don’t realise and fully comprehend is the technical rationale behind online faxing.
You may have already read countless cloud fax reviews and are considering removing your old fax machine for a more reliable solution. Regardless, this guide will provide all the information you need to make an informed decision for your business.
In the broadest sense of the term, cloud faxing allows users to send and receive faxed documents through an email program or web portal, without the need for any on-premises hardware or software. Given that email is one of the most familiar tools used in worldwide offices today, moving business operations toward cloud-based faxing services allows a company to seamlessly integrate online internet faxing into an existing email communication thread.
Although it is certainly the most popular, email is but one of many options which are available to a business when it comes to updating traditional fax infrastructure and eventually moving away from hard-wired machines and clunky, costly fax servers to a cloud faxing model.
With online faxing, your company can enjoy a wide range of flexible options that will make faxing your primary communication tool. As well as the obvious communication benefits, cloud based faxing boasts a wide range of perks, such as increased productivity and reduced IT costs. By moving your fax service online, it will put an end to costly and time-consuming machine maintenance and instantly reduce paper usage and office supply bills.
In this piece, we will explain precisely how faxing through the cloud actually works, with specific attention paid to how it can be integrated within your company’s existing email communications, before elaborating on the various ways by which businesses can use cloud-based technology to unify and improve their existing communications systems.
Cloud Faxing Explained: Fax through Email Benefits
When signing up for service, eFax Corporate will assign your company a unique virtual fax number — or multiple numbers, depending on the size, location and specific requirements of your business model.
Small to medium businesses will normally require one or more eFax numbers that can be shared among multiple employees. Some companies will need multiple eFax numbers for use in each department or business location. Others will want all employees to have their own individual numbers in order to ensure that everyone in the company has autonomy and accountability.
With Fax Corporate, your company will be able to set up as many individual fax numbers as it needs, while still enjoying the flexibility of being able to scale operations up or down at any stage.
eFax Corporate offers a variety of different types of fax numbers, catering to various business needs. Among the options are standard local telephone numbers and toll-free numbers. In most cases, you can move your current fax numbers to eFax Corporate so there is no need change a previously published fax number.
Once your company has been assigned its specific eFax numbers, they can at once be used to send and receive faxes electronically, without the need for a traditional fax machine or fax server. (See related post on this topic: Is It Time To Retire Your Fax Server?).
Using a hypothetical example, we’re going to give you an overview of how eFax Corporate’s advanced cloud-based technology works. We’ll also explain how IT teams can quickly have employees faxing via the corporate email system.
Please note however, that this example only represents one of many potential scenarios. Other options include sending and receiving faxes from a web-based fax portal, from a secure encrypted portal, and via APIs for high volume applications.
How to Use Cloud Faxing Solutions To Fax Via The Internet
Once your digital fax numbers have been fully set up and assigned to user accounts, you will use the following email address to send faxes. This standard eFax Corporate format usually follows the below format, e.g. you would type in the recipient’s fax and follow it with “@efaxsend.eu”.
To send your first internet fax, all you need to do is simply open a new message in your office email program and in the “To” toolbar, enter the address, which would look like this: [email protected] .
Your next steps will vary, but at the very minimum you should want to craft a cover page. You can load your cover page simply by typing a message in the email body, or uploading a file or custom template that you had previously created for this purpose.
The next step involves attaching your chosen documents (most file formats should be acceptable) by uploading them from your hard drive, the cloud or USB stick and attaching them just like you would do so in a regular email message.
After sending the email and attachment(s), eFax Corporate will receive your message and any associated file attachments, immediately convert them to a standard fax image, and transmit them over the telecommunications network to your chosen recipient’s fax machine.
Once the message is successfully and completely received by the recipients fax machine, eFax Corporate will send you a confirmation receipt. This notice will then be saved automatically in your account and, in turn, will be available to access at any stage by logging into your company’s administrator portal. This system is ideal for offices or companies who need easy and efficient access to receipts and confirmations for auditing purposes as well as general record keeping.
When it comes to receiving inbound faxes, eFax Corporate will perform a very similar process but this time in reverse. A sender enters your eFax number into their fax machine, inserts the document and hits the “send” button.
The fax image will be delivered first to eFax Corporate and converted to either a PDF or TIFF (image) file (your preference), and immediately forwarded to the email address associated with the dialled eFax number.
Watch this short video to see how to receive a fax.
Cloud Faxing Explained: Fax through On-Line Portal
eFax Corporate’s cloud faxing package includes an on-line portal which allows users to access, send, receive, view and forward their fax documents. There is also means to easily view and retrieve all archived faxes.
What is particularly ingenious about eFax Corporate’s online faxing portal is that should the event arise where your company’s staff can’t access your corporate email account, they will still be able to send and receive business faxes through their cloud fax account. Using broadband access, users can access their eFax Corporate account from anywhere at any time, even when on the go, meaning business doesn’t have to slow down just because members of staff are away from their desks.
At this point, it is important to note that while you will be using email or web portal to send and receive faxes, to the outside world it will appear as though you are using a standard analogue fax machine. Your competitors and business associates will still think that your company is using traditional faxing methods, rather than using modern, efficient technology through the cloud.
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.