Most businesses cannot afford to allocate an individual fax machine to each of their employees. In fact it has become extremely difficult for larger companies to manager their fax requirements over a period of time. Traditionally, a company has a fax machine installed on each floor and people who want to send out a fax have to walk up to the machine and fax out the document. There are few problems with this approach; the first problem is that it is not possible for more than one person to fax their documents at the same time, it is not uncommon for people to stand in line before they can fax out their documents.

The second problem with traditional fax machines is that a single telephone line is usually assigned to cater to all the fax machines, so even if there are 3 fax machines installed a person usually has to wait for the fax line to be free while someone else is using the machine on a separate floor. In conjunction with the latest in software advances, fax servers are now available that can overcome the problems traditional fax machines have. A fax server is installed on a computer that is linked directly to a fax machine. Instead of going up to the fax machine every time a person can simply send a document to the fax server and the fax server takes care of the faxing.

It is not necessary that the computer linked to the fax machine be a dedicated fax server. The computer acting as the fax server can also be used as a regular workstation. In larger organizations that have a large fax volume, there is usually a dedicated fax server. In addition a fax server does not require a user to leave his desk every time he wishes to send a fax. Also fax servers have the capability of queuing faxes; this means that there will be no busy tone to deal with. A single fax line can take care of a large number of users.

A user can send a fax using a fax server by the following methods:

a)A user can attach the files he wants to fax in an email and email it to the fax server, the fax server usually has a separate email account assigned to it and it then recognises the faxes and sends them out

b)A user can instruct his computer to print the documents he wants to fax using a virtual printer, instead of printing the paper the virtual printer faxes the documents

c)A customizable web interface can be used; the users can log on to a website or webpage and simply upload the pages they want to fax out.

d)A custom software can be used and carry out the processing in the background

Depending on various factors a company can decide on choosing either of the above mentioned methods to allow their users to send faxes. The most popular method to send faxes is usually integrating the fax server with the mail server.

Advantages of a fax server

The biggest advantage of a fax server is that a fax server allows users to send faxes right from their computers without having to go to the fax machine every time. Fax servers thus directly increase the productivity of the company. Moreover by queuing documents when the fax line is busy, the fax server ensures that people do not have to wait in line to send their documents (the fax server simply queues the faxes and sends them once the line is free). A fax server also eliminates the need for more than one fax line; a single fax line can take care of the fax needs of hundreds of office employees. A fax server also allows any document to be faxed without having to print it first.