Hello, 
 
We've desgined an office automation solution based on propriotery code
on the Linux operating system.  We got to the inbound and outbound fax
traffic requirement and were a bit stuck.  We don't have background in
that area and as such would like recommendations to guide us.
 
We would be, idealy, interested in being able to deal with the fax
gateway via an API of some sorts to allow us to manage faxes better.
 
For instance, we'de like the ability to map the Sender ID to a
particular staff
and auto route incoming faxes from a particular source to them or even
group clients to that particular representatives and so on.
 
Free, shareware or commercial would be fine.  Should be good if it
dealt with common and affordable faxing hardware.
 
Status and error reporting are important where successful, failed and
incomplete faxes are not ignored to allow for the problem to be
corrected by the application or the individual who's responsible for
delivery of the fax document.
 
Any hints and comments would also be appreciated. 
 
/Lizardnation

Hello Lizardnation,

Thanks for an interesting question!  Fax automation is becoming a
popular way to link the analog phone system with the digital intranet
systems so prevalent in today's businesses.  Linux offers several
possibilities that might suit your needs.  You didn't specify what
version of Linux you're using, nor what hardware it's running on, so
I'm assuming you're planning on the more common targets (i.e.
Intel-based systems, not Sparc/MIPS/or Macintosh PowerPC-based
hardware).

I’d recommend you look into the popular HylaFax product.  (
http://www.hylafax.org )  Hylafax is free software, written by an
engineer from Silicon Graphics, Inc.  (SGI released the program, but
does not support it).  As open-source software, you have the option to
modify it to fit your needs, and there’s already an active Bugzilla
tracker for it and CVS access to the most recent builds.  Versions of
Hylafax actually ship with a number of popular Linux distributions,

Hylafax is likely to fit with most (if not all) of your stated goals: 
“Incoming facsimile are stored in a receiving area as TIFF/F (read
``TIFF Class F'') files and may be automatically delivered by mail
and/or printed. A fax server status program, faxstat, can be used to
monitor the send and receive queues, as well as the state of facsimile
servers.” (from http://www.hylafax.org/overview.html )

On a personal note, I have a friend who setup Hylafax for his company
a few months ago and is extremely pleased with it.

There are, of course, other possible Linux products out there.  One
commercial solution might be the offerings from Faximum. (
http://www.faximum.com/ ) Their products offer a variety of features
that match what you’re describing, including API hooks.   Their fax
solution  “provides integrated email/fax messaging that enables users
to receive their faxes in the same inbox as their email and to send
their faxes merely by addressing email to a fax number.” (from
http://www.faximum.com/products/overview/ )

You might also wish to investigate Fax2send from Beacon Computer
Services.  ( http://www.fax2send.com/fax2send/page/home.html )  This
is a commercial product, but includes a 30-day free trial.  Fax2send
includes client software for Microsoft Windows, and has an API which
allows for sending faxes from applications, checking the fax queue,
etc. (see http://www.fax2send.com/fax2send/page/shellapi_overview.html
)

Finally, I’ll mention Efax, which is a free send/receive fax solution
for Linux produced by Casas Communications Engineering.  (
http://www.cce.com/efax/ ) While efax is billed as a single-user fax
product, it could serve as part of a solution, dealing with the actual
send & receive portion of the automation; other tools such as efax-gtk
might provide the management features you describe, or you could work
on building that portion yourself with your preferred tools.

I hope this answers your question.  If you have additional questions
about any of the above, please don’t hesitate to post a request for
clarification before rating, and I’ll be happy to go further.

Regards,
Duncan2-ga

ADDITIONAL LINKS:

You can find all of the above and many more mentioned in this list of
Linux Fax software at LinuxLinks.com:
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Software/Internet/Communications/Fax/

A similar list can be found at linuxsoftware.org:
http://www.linuxsoftware.org/leaf.php3?catid=148

SEARCH STRATEGY
I used Google to search for fax server software, using various
combinations of the terms “linux send receive fax server”:
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=linux+send+receive+fax+server&btnG=Google+Search

I was already familiar with HylaFax; the others I investigated from
the search results.

Well done Duncan2, pretty complete. :-)

/Lizardnation