I haven’t found a way to do this so I was curious if it was possible. I realize the easy answer is to get rid of the physical fax machine but a couple of our department managers are fighting that option for now. Has anyone ever set up something similiar successfully?
+2Hi
To keep the physical fax machine and appease the managers, you should use an Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA). This is a common and successful setup for businesses moving to the cloud who aren't ready to go 100% digital.
You don't need to get rid of the machine; you just need a bridge.
Device: Use a RingCentral-supported ATA like the Cisco ATA 191/192 or Poly OBi302.
Connection: Plug the fax machine into the ATA via a standard phone cord (RJ-11), and plug the ATA into your internet router via an Ethernet cable.
Check the KB Article below: Connecting the Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) and Fax Machine
So because a phone number can only be assigned to a single entity, user account, call queue, message-only extn, limited extension. There is no option to route the call to both a fax machine (limited extension) and a user account or anything else is possible. An inbound fax will not even ring at a users phone since the SIP tags show it a fax it is routed straight to the voicemail account of the user and then emailed to that users notification email.
We had 26+ fax machines - in one department alone having 12, it was one machine for every 2 people… we have it down to one for the department now. :) 7 physical units now for the whole company - we set up all staff to have the same outgoing fax number, so any sent by the desktop app all show the common reply-to number.
The ATA allows the fax to still go out - we just have the incomnig fax number sent to the email where it gets striped off, saved to a network folder, and then a tiny 2k email gets sent to that specific depatment distribution group - saying ‘there’s a fax in the XXXX folder’.
The ‘brains’ of it is a commercial software package called ‘CodeTwo’ - we run it on-prem, and it’s been fantasic for us. No more tens of reams of paper being printed, rescanned, and then shredded. :) CodeTwo allows you to manipulate the emails as they come in, all while saving the original date/timestamp.
The setup for the ATA needs fields that RC techs don’t tell you about - let me know if you go that route and I’ll post up the pdfs - we’re using the OBI 302s.
Hope that helps.
have fun.
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