Product Review: GFI FAXmaker for MS Exchange/SMTP

Introduction

Fax is not going to vanish, but we can make the Fax machines disappear from our work place. Yes, I am talking about the Fax Server [1]. In this article, I will give you an overview about an awesome Fax Server [1] product – GFI FAXmaker for MS Exchange/SMTP.

What is FAX Server?

Before gaining more insights about this product, a typical Fax Server comprises mainly three components: A power PC running on Windows 200x OS which connected to LAN, Fax server/client application and a fax modem. There are two type of Fax Servers – The one which integrate with Email system & the one that doesn’t. Those who already have email system, it is good idea to integrate Fax Server, for example GFI Faxmaker.

Why GFI FAXmaker?

GFI Faxmaker offers seamless integration with Exchange Server for delivering fax communications to all workstations and applications in the organization – e.g., using MS Outlook and GFI’s native Fax client. In real quick, users can send/retrieve a fax from their PC. GFI Faxmaker, become a central repository for every fax transmissions that enters or leaves your organization. So in a critical situation whereby you need to search, retrieve or in worst case resend these important business communications are factually possible. So FAX is not Dead!

System Requirements

GFI FAXmaker for Exchange works with Exchange versions 5.5, 2000 & 2003 to provide fully integrated fax capabilities to users from their desktops. The new version of GFI (V13) will be more suitable for Exchange 2007 – yet to release. My test setup is a single line outbound/inbound scenario. The system I used is Intel Pentium 4, 1.8 GHz, 512DDR memory, 40GB HDD, One Ethernet card running on Windows 2003 Server R2 Enterprise Edition with MS Exchange 2003 Server SP2. I used my OLD 3com US Robotics 56K external modem (which was in my store room with lots of dust). Even if you have multiple lines, you can have that same configuration copied to remaining lines. This is extremely useful!

How GFI FAXmaker works with Exchange Server?

GFI FAXmaker for Exchange comes with a connector which installed into the Exchange system. By doing this, you can leverage a user's experience working with Microsoft Outlook . This makes GFI FAXmaker for Exchange to function as the centralized facility for the fax transmissions as well as message routing activities. In other words, when GFI FAXmaker for Exchange receives fax messages, it will also route those messages to the respective users, because the rules are created by systems administrator. With these rules, you can route fax messages to individual mailbox, to group mailbox, and to the Exchange public folders. I believe these routing features makes this an absolutely great product. I must tell you that the installation was completed in 20-25 minutes time in my testing environment and configuration was done in another 30 minutes.

Administration & Management console

GFI FAXmaker Configuration sonsole is a one stop place for most of your Fax server configuration. “A picture is worth more than a thousand words”. As you can see the console below, GFI FAXmaker is having a lot of cool new features.


Figure 01: GFI FAXmaker Configuration console

When you install GFI Faxmaker, it establishs a link to Exchange Server using a special routing group connector. This way, GFI FAXmaker interface with the Active Directory to configure fax permissions based on existing user accounts. This apparently, helps us to avoid having a second database for fax server users.

FAXmaker Monitor

This tool helps us a lot. To see the status of send/receive, to debug the errors etc. Also, you can prioritize the fax transmission using Queues Faxes option.


Figure 02: FAXmaker Monitor

Figure 03: FAXmaker Monitor – status sending of faxes.

Figure 04: FAX Monitor – Message Transfer Agent, helps you to check Gateway status and monitor the queues.

FAX Clients

You can use either MS Outlook or GFI’s native Fax tool as clients.

Figure 05: MS Outlook as GFI Fax client.

Outlook users select the recipient of the fax by using the user's "Business Fax" entry from either their Outlook Contacts or the Exchange Global Address List, as shown below.

Figure 06: Outlook users print the fax, then Outlook automatically opens up the message with the fax attached. They choose the Fax number from by locating “Business Fax” entry.

I tested GFI’s native FAX client to send fax from most of the windows based applications such as ms word, ms excel, ms power point, ms outlook & visio. It turned to be absolutely nice fax transmission images.

Figure 07: Native Fax client from GFI

File Extension .fax is the default FAX format, but I changed the settings as below picture, so the faxes are stored as .pdf on my server. I really love this!

Figure 08: File format conversion to PDF file.

Below is example of Fax viewer which I received in my office Fax machine, this was sent from my GFI FAXmaker at home. I used a PDF attachment (not show here) in this test . The information you type in the outlook message body and subject is gathered in the cover page, as show below:

Figure 09: Cover Page

Trial Version & Availability

You can find out more about GFI FAXmaker from the product’s info page [1] and you can download the 30 days trial version of GFI FAXmaker from here [2].Pricing for GFI FAXmaker starts at $775 for ten users

Summary

I like GFI FAXmaker very much mainly because its simplicity of usage. I have been evaluating this at my home along with MS Exchange 2003 server and outlook 2007. If your organization has very low faxing requirements, then fax server may not fit for you. But if your organization uses faxing to communicate essential business information to your customers, there will be substantial money savings when Fax Server is installed, for example FAXmaker for Exchange. Overall my rating is 4 out 5 for GFI FAXmaker! and I highly recommend it. However some pros & cons worth mentioning here about GFI Faxmaker.

• Simple installation, configuration & administration
• Great Support & user guides are absolutely helpful
• GFI FAX Maker is reasonably affordable in the market and maintenance is not an overhead at all

• There is no MMS gateway mode, although they nicely built in SMS gateway (hope to see MMS gateway mode in future version of GFI Faxmaker)

Related links

More info [1]
Download 30-day trial [2]
Product manual [3]
Installation instructions [4]
Support Center [5]
Knowledge base [6]
Live Support [7]
Discussion Boards [8]