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How Can I Fax Directly From SOAPware?
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With SOAPware Faxing Service, users are able to transmit faxes directly from SOAPware as easily as they can print a document. Note, it is a one-way fax. You can only fax out; you cannot receive faxes. We have been exploring various, more robust faxing options for some time, but it has not been clear as to which tools we should incorporate. Many are now using Snappy Fax ( http://www.snappysoftware.com/ ) to receive faxed documents that can be drag-and-dropped into SOAPware.
To use the SOAPware Fax Service, Click Docutainers in the menu bar, and then Click Print.
Available Document Designs dialog appears.
Click the type of design/report to send, and then Click Fax.
Next, your Contacts list will be displayed. Click the contact to receive the fax. Note, they must have a fax number in their contact information (you can edit the contact information from here).
A drop-down menu is presented to select who the fax is from.
Type in the subject for the fax (i.e. what the fax is in regards to as SOAPware can generate a Fax Cover page with the address that appears on your SOAPware license).
(add screen shot)
Click Fax.
The Program automatically transmits the fax, and can even automatically file a copy of the faxed report into Correspondence Out chart section for future reference.
One of the best features of this service is that no set-up is required, and it eliminates the need for a fax modem, fax server, and dedicated fax line. The fax is sent electronically to SOAPware, where our faxing servers instantly transmit the fax directly to the recipient.
How do you know if the fax was successful or not? - If the fax was not successful, the SOAPware Technical Support department receives a message. They will try to send the fax again manually. If that fails, technical support will contact your office.
User Feedback regarding fax-in:
We have used OmnipagePro.
Flow looks like this.
Our physical fax machine is set only to send.
One computer with fax modem is set only to receive.
Use windows faxing program to receive the faxes from the modem.
Windows faxing will place the tiff in any folder you wish (and also print!).
Omnipage pro can be set to watch this folder and convert to many formats including pdf.
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There is an option in SnappyFax to automatically save fax-in as pdfs.There is an option to remove the cover page. There are two problems with SnappyFax we have found
- SnappyFax will not run as a service
- We cannot get it to work correctly with users over remote desktops (i.e. RDP). The snappy server captures the modem so the RDP clients cannot access the modem.
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I use windows Small Business Server, all faxes come in and go out through it. When a fax comes in it is routed to an internal website , were anyone in the office can look at the fax by access of the internal website. I also get a copy emailed to my desk top. I find it is easier to quickly look at them this way as they come in. One of the receptionists copies the fax to a local folder and imports them into soapware. I am currently using version 4. All out going faxes go through windows SBS. If it is a form that needs to be signed , I will sign it in Soapware and click to send out. I used to have an outgoing fax machine on the same data line but I got a lot of reception errors. Documents which are not directly related to a single patient chart are scanned into the computer with adobe acrobat and then sent. This is one frustration because it adds a separate step, which I really dont have a good other solution. Other documents which I use on a limited basis which need to be faxed are set up on a folder on the internal website, such as license and malpractice. They are set up as packet for nursing home , packet for insurance company and so forth. So when an insurance company requests documentation and licenses the receptionist can just pick a packet of completed forms and press send.
Faxing works quite well on SBS2003 which I have for the last few months, I was using SBS 2000 for 6 years and the faxing seemed to crash intermittently.
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The only problem with using windows fax is the way soapware handles tiff files. If you receive a 50 page fax you will have 50 individual pages. If you want to bring the 50 page fax into soapware you will have 50 tabs going across your encounter and 50 tasks to sign off. With PDF ie. SnappyFax, Adobe, the 50 pages come in as 1 file that you can drag into your encounter and scroll up and down to view on 1 single tab.
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We use an all in one fax , with a pc fax option, it is set so it does not print faxes but only go directly on the pc as a tiff file. They are then converted to pdf via paperport ( which I think came with it ) and separated if needed, ( I cant get the hospital to leave off the damn cover sheet and they batch lot of pts together ) . they are then assigned via document exporter.
About maybe 25 percent have to be printed which is a pain because they are orders etc that need to be signed and sent back. I agree it seems these days hardly any one mails us anything , most are faxes.
I guess that not printing and using toner probably saves us at least 50 -75 dollars a month .
You can also pc fax out .
I could not get snappy fax to work well, images were not readable
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Multi-page faxes come in as single pages with v2008+. Not a big deal if your using Adobe.
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I believe I have it set up pretty well..
The faxes come directly into microsoft small business server 2003 and are automatically stored in the fax directory set up by the microsoft fax utility. The images are initially stored as tiff files.
I then schedule a batch file that automatically runs a program called IfranView in the background. Ifranview allows for conversion of tiff images to pdf from the command line. The batch file also appends the date the fax was received onto the filename, which is easier than the seemingly random number that microsoft fax utility automatically generates. Those date-apended pdf faxes are then stored in a shared directory on the network, and are therefore available to all other workstations. This all happens seamlessly in the background of the server.
The employees in the front office then open a program to let them preview the pdf files. We use Adobe Bridge. Bridge allows you to point at a directory and will continuously monitor it for new faxes that arive and will show a preview.
Thus, all front office employees have to do is have Bridge running. They will see a preview of any fax that is received, can view the pdf full screen, and can drag that into the patient chart.
An additional benefit is that if you double click the pdf in bridge it will open it in adobe acrobat , which allows you to mark up the document, including having a stamp tool to stamp signatures or other notes on the pdf.
Additonally, I don't believe you need small business server to run this. Rather, you just need to have Microsoft Fax Console installed, though I am not sure as I have never tried to set this up outside of sbs 2003. Regardless, the real work is done by the batch file, so as long as you can get the faxes coming into the computer you should be able to setup Irfanview to do the hard work...And obviously you need something to preview the pdfs with (as I said we use Bridge).
Works like a charm.
I schedule the batch to run every couple of minutes by making it a scheduled task (i.e. programs -> accessories -> system tools -> scheduled tasts).
There are probably more elegant ways of monitoring the directory, but I find that this more than adequate, even though there is a slight delay b/t when the fax is received and when it is converted.
The contents of my script are in bold below:
"C:\Program Files\IrfanView\i_view32.exe" "D:\Fax\Archived Received Faxes\*.tif" /convert=D:\Fax\PDFFax\*.pdf /killmesoftly /silent
del "D:\Fax\Archived Received Faxes\*.*" /Q
The first directory is the directory the faxes come in, the second directory is the shared network directory. the killmesoftly switch is a irfanview switch along with the silent. I remember having to get some additional things in order to do pdf files, I would look at the irfanview site to see if there are plugins that are required for pdf files. I do not remember off the top of my head since I did this over a year ago. I would test with one tiff file to see if it works. You may also need to tweak settings in irfanview itself, or in the settings of the plugin for pdf.
A program like SnappyFax looks like a great option. However there are may be some situations where using irfanview may be preferable.
With small business server 2003 there is faxing capability built into the operating system, and the faxes are automatically routed to a specific folder. Therefore all that is needed is the conversion and date appending. Because faxing is built into some server operating systems, there may be no need for a separate program to receive faxes.
I am not sure how Snappy converts the faxes to pdf as I have never used the program, but I can attest to IrfanView having a substantial amount of customizing options in terms of the size of the pdf, the colors, and the compression. Personally I tried to get the pdf as small in size as possible while making sure that it was still readble and printable.
Another benefit is that IrfanView is free, and open source.
Other than that, Snappy definitely seems to be solid, and is probably easier to setup. If anyone goes my route, feel free to PM me if you are having problems with the batch file.
With small business server 2003 there is faxing capability built into the operating system, and the faxes are automatically routed to a specific folder. Therefore all that is needed is the conversion and date appending. Because faxing is built into some server operating systems, there may be no need for a separate program to receive faxes.
I am not sure how Snappy converts the faxes to pdf as I have never used the program, but I can attest to IrfanView having a substantial amount of customizing options in terms of the size of the pdf, the colors, and the compression. Personally I tried to get the pdf as small in size as possible while making sure that it was still readble and printable.
Another benefit is that IrfanView is free, and open source.
Other than that, Snappy definitely seems to be solid, and is probably easier to setup. If anyone goes my route, feel free to PM me if you are having problems with the batch file.
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I use Snappy Fax server for incoming faxes. Conversion to .pdf works fine. The receptionist periodically moves files from there to the inbox we use for SW. She uses Omnipage to turn over upside down pages and separate files that have records for more than one patient, and can remove cover pages also. If the fax is something we need to write on, she is supposed to print it out. If it doesn't pertain to a patient, it is supposed to get moved to another document management file instead of the SW inbox file.
I keep Snappy Fax Server running on the Server, in a login that I don't log off. (Backups run in that log in also). Every once in a while Snappy Fax and the modem stop talking to each other and I have to go in and tell SFS to reset the modem or I'll stop getting faxes.
I initially review faxes as I drag them into SW with Document importer, as I review all the paper that needs my review. If it needs a quick response, I assign a higher priority task, otherwise it defaults to 4 and I sign it off as I get time. Not very elegant workflow (I see everything twice), but using DI is actually pretty quick, and lets be sure I've seen and prioritized everything.
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