[kostas14]

Hi, I am about to start the development of the faxing module of an ordering application that will be used by the call center of medium-sized Pizza delivery company. They have around 70 delivery points and a central call center that distributes calls to the appropriate delivery point. The staff working at the delivering points is not trained to use computers and also they want to avoid the cost of internet connections and support for all of them. They chose to use fax as a mechanism (!!!) for communicating orders to the appropriate branch. So, here is the question, about the topology
(ONE) Ordering App Server running WinFax PRO as a fax client
WinFax PRO fax-sharing server with pool of modems (about 20)

Does anyone know if it will work? I fear that the WinFaxPRO server will not be able to handle – say 10 simultaneous requests for faxes, in reasonable amount of time ( i do not know if it can handle more than one request in PARALLEL, since the hardware will have many modems waiting)

Any similar experience please? Thanx

[Anonymous]

I would have to say that WinFax isn’t a solution for this. There are several reasons why, the first is that WinFax will only support 2 modems per Fax Host. If it is a time critical situation, WinFax won’t handle it. You might want to look at another fax server, such as RightFax http://www.rightfax.com
Even something simple as the time difference between the Host and Client will cause a fax to be stuck at the WinFax Host. While for bulk faxing, its usually not a problem — but for time sensitive faxing I doubt it will work flawlessly.

[kostas14]

thanx

[Anonymous]

Just to add to that, you might want to look at some of the Internet Fax services. Maybe have the internet connection at the call centre, and have them send faxes via email. The 70 delivery points would have the fax machines to receive the orders.

There are several email->fax services around. You might want to speak with Concord Fax http://www.concordfax.com
They also provide an SDK to use their fax service directly.

[Author]

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