In addition to managing all of your fax broadcast campaigns and outgoing faxes, Mekashron will automatically detect, handle and store your incoming faxes. In this section we will see how this works and what useful functions are available for you to manage incoming faxes with ease and efficiency.
1 - Incoming Fax Settings
To set up Mekashron to receive faxes:
From the main Mekashron menu, select Main -> Settings.
Figure 1.1 – Accessing Settings from the Main Menu
In the resulting dialog box choose the Fax tab and within that the Incoming Faxes tab.
Figure 1.2 – The Incoming Faxes Settings Tab
The Fax Devices shown in the list are the fax modems that are connected to your system. Select the appropriate one. Note that you can select multiple fax modems in this list, which will enable Mekashron to receive multiple faxes at the same time.
If you have already set up this modem for use for on the Telephone tab, then when you click on the Properties button you will see that Mekashron has retained the settings that you entered when you set up the modem for the telephone. Please see the information on the Modem Properties Form in the Telemarketing Settings chapter for more information.
The other settings on this tab are:
- Print Fax to Printer – If you select a printer here, then Mekashron will automatically print incoming faxes to this printer.
- Limit Receiving Hours – If you wish Mekashron to only accept incoming faxes during a certain period, select this checkbox. Then you can specify the valid period during which it is OK for incoming faxes to be received.
2 - Detecting Incoming Faxes
Each of your Mekashron PCs will be set up by default to detect incoming calls. This setting is available by right-clicking on the Mekashron icon in the toolbar of your PC:
Figure 2.1 – The Detect Incoming Calls Setting
As you can see, the Detect Incoming Calls option is selected with a tick next to it. If you wish to disable a particular PC from receiving incoming calls, click on the option to deselect it.
Assuming that the Detect Incoming Calls option is enabled, then when a fax comes in, the Fax Status Screen will pop up and show the status of the incoming fax as it is received:
Figure 2.2 – The Fax Status Screen
Once the fax has been received, it will be routed to the user's Mekashron Inbox, as we will see in the next section.
3 - The Inbox
For each fax (or Incoming Phone Call) that is received, an entry will appear in the user's Mekashron Inbox.
The screenshot below shows an Inbox displaying two incoming fax messages:
Figure 3.1 – The Inbox
Note that the top item in this list is shown in Bold - this indicates that the item has not yet been viewed. The second item has already been viewed, as it is not shown in bold.
Also note that for the second item in this list, Mekashron has populated the Entity and the From fields. These fields can be automatically populated if an incoming fax arrives from a fax number belonging to an entity in your database. In order for this to function correctly, you must have the Caller ID service enabled on the telephone line, and the fax modem which is connected to the PC must have a function that allows it to pass the Caller ID through to the software. If this is the case, then Mekashron will automatically recognise which of your clients has sent you the fax, and show this correctly in the Inbox.
For details of the commands available to you in the Inbox, please refer to the Campaigns Manage chapter.
4 - Summary
As we have seen in this chapter, Mekashron enables you to seamlessly manage your incoming fax communications in addition to all of your various outgoing communications.