Can anyone pls give some idea on how stable and successful is fax
integration in Microsoft CRM ? Of course I will be using the SBS 2003.
I have read the documents but just want a general opinion on the 'practical
usage' in realtime environment by someone. Thanks

Hi SA,

Although I'm not working myself with the SBS version of CRM, I am active in
the communities for quite some time. Because I have not seen any question
regarding the fax integration, I can assume that the fax integration works
fine.

Kind regards,
--
Ronald Lemmen - MSCRM MVP
Avanade Netherlands
http://www.ronaldlemmen.com/


"SA" wrote:

Or that nobody actually uses it :-)

It works but only for plain-text messages. Without the server-side ability
to fax attachments it's next to useless in real business scenarios. No
wonder it's no longer on a radar.
Interestingly enough, inbound fax integration running OCR and automatically
setting regarding for activity does work more often than not.

Cheers
--
George Doubinski
CRM Certified Professional - Developer
Blog: http://crm.georged.id.au/


"Ronald Lemmen" <RonaldL@-REMOVETHIS-avanade.com> wrote in message
news:6B277E3E-1CDD-4DC4-9ACB-E8C4A5BD4F00@microsoft.com...

George,

What do you mean by :
- Plain text only, All faxes are usually plain text ...isn't it ?
- Server side ability to fax attachments ?

Thanks


"George Doubinski" <georged.delete@alexanders.remove.net.au> wrote in
message news:OiM2n$WhIHA.5368@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...

Strictly speaking faxes are TIFF images and not plain text. Typical business
fax contains some attached information, e.g. invoice, Word document, etc
which gets printed to a fax printer, converted to image and sent off. That's
what people usually do - type a document in Word then print to fax and off
it goes.

Users' expectations in CRM were that one can create new fax activity,
attached document to it, type some cover note and click send. Well, the note
comes through just fine and even cover page gets picked up. As for Word
document, since there is nothing on the server that can read and print the
document, sending fails. Short of installing Office on the server, I'm not
sure that problem can be solved. Different scenario of opening, say, invoice
record and faxing in it to the customer with the end result being new fax
activity in CRM would have been nice but I'm not sure how to solve this one
either.

--
George Doubinski
CRM Certified Professional - Developer
Blog: http://crm.georged.id.au/


"SA" <discussions@microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:ubdwgZYhIHA.944@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

Very helpful. Dumped the fax integration idea then


"George Doubinski" <georged.delete@alexanders.remove.net.au> wrote in
message news:Of9XC5ehIHA.4740@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...