How to Fax to Email With Exchange
Microsoft Exchange 2007 allows faxes and voice mails to be sent to the email system, but does not allow email to be sent out to fax machines. It uses a system called"Unified Messaging to achieve this. This is a system better suited to office networks than a home computer. Unified Messaging relies on the presence of a Voice over IP (VoIP) gateway which is able to detect fax signals and route them using "SIP" signalling.
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Instructions
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Complete the setup for Unified Messaging for email and voice calls. The system will have a dial plan, dictating how calls are routed to extensions and a mailbox identifying each user. Once the Unified Messaging for Microsoft Exchange is functioning, fax capabilities can be added.
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Ensure that the fax feature is enabled in the Unified Messaging (UM) system. Each user will be assigned to a dial plan. Both the user and the dial plan should be fax-enabled. This can be done by issuing the following commands on the UM server:
Set-UMDialPlan --identity <Dialplan Name> --FaxEnabled $true
Set-UMMailbox --identity <User Name> --FaxEnabled $true
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Set the maximum number of concurrent fax calls allowed. Issue the command:
Set-UMServer -Identity <UM Server Name> -MaxFaxCallsAllowed 100
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Set the behavior expected for incoming fax calls. To do this, Unified Messaging uses a system called "policies." It is necessary to add a policy that notifies UM where faxes will originate. Without setting this, the source of faxes in the system will default to Microsoft Exchange. Create a policy for fax calls. Issue the command:
Set-UMMailboxPolicy --identity <Fax Policy> --FaxId "Fax Service"
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Add an email message to be sent with the fax. The fax will arrive to the user in TIF format as an attachment to an email. The body of the email will contain the message you set up here. Issue the command:
Set-UMMailboxPolicy --identity <Fax Policy> --FaxMessageText "This Fax is received by UM Server."
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Tips & Warnings
To add outbound fax capabilities to the network, set up a fax gateway as a printer queue accessible to all users.
References
- Photo Credit fax image by Attila Toro from Fotolia.com
