Fax to Email to ECM

Fax cloud services make it easy to convert fax transmitions into email and attachments. These attachments can TIF or PDF and the email can include a cover sheet. This service eliminates the need to use a traditional fax machine altogether.

The trick is integration with your ECM. Hyland's OnBase subscription service allows you to poll an Outlook inbox form incoming emails. Once an email comes in, the service imports the email's body and attachment. It will import both as seperate doc types and then if necessary place the files in a scan queue. This automates the manual email and importing steps in the invoice process for example.

Aspects to consider

Gather requirements around how to route incoming faxes. For example, typically a department like accounts payable will have on inbox which caters to multiple types of requests. In order to route and organize the incoming invoices vs. complaints vs. receipts vs. backup documentation, rules need to be put in place. These rules should start at the inbox level. This means breakout the major types of the incoming emails, for example, invoices and backup docs. Then look at common values in the email's subject, to and from, and body text. Each of these will help tag incoming content with pertinent metadata.