Hylafax

Discussion in 'Feature: Requests and Planning' started by Graham, Jan 26, 2007.

  1. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    Hylafax is an open source enterprise-class fax server that runs under Linux, and Solaris ie. not windows. Unlike the Snappyfax solution I posted earlier, Hylafax scales to 1000s of faxes daily over multiple fax lines. Fax jobs can be submitted using a windows print driver, or, can be entirely driven by the Synapse EMR server.


    For those of you running an underutilized windows server, it might be possible to run Hylafax as a Vmware appliance. I have done some initial testing under these conditions and it seems to work. However, I have been warned that
    Since I am using an external modem which is not being used on the windows side for anything, I may not have these problems. But if they do occur, you may have to setup a separate fax server using an old box that you can install Linux on.

    The aim here is to import the faxes directly into Synapse so that reception staff can see incoming faxes in their inbox, and redirect them to the appropriate clinical staff. A script needs to be running as in the Snappyfax solution that monitors the submitted faxes from Synapse EMR, it sends them to the fax server, and also imports the incoming faxes.

    More on this later ...
  2. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    Note that Hylafax will be part of our premium product. Express users should stick to the snappyfax solution.

  3. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    Incoming faxes - need:
    • View
    • Delete ( fax spam )
    • Optionally print
    • Annotate and fax back
    • Forward onto appropriate staff member
    • Attach to patient as a result
    • ? OCR - is a free linux or windows command line client for this?
  4. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    [quote user="Graham"]

    Incoming faxes - need:
    • Annotate and fax back

    [/quote]

    I'd love this. If you could "save" the fax number it came from - that would be great. (I suggested it to Snappy Fax).

    I'd would want to read the fax. INK on it with my Tablet (or a graphics Tablet) and click FAX. Done.
  5. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    Some early success. Tesseract is an open source OCR engine originally written for HP. I was able to convert the tif to bmp, and then OCR them.

  6. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    weird. I though .bmp was a windows thing.
  7. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    Yes, I am doing the conversion on the windows side.

    So, what I have so far is automatic fax answering, transfer to Windows Synapse server, ocr and insert the file into the fax queue with the OCR as metadata ready for further management by clerical staff.

  8. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    cmon ! That's awesome.

    Now I have to rig up a NIX box.
  9. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    I am using openSuse 10 .. probably the only distro I will support.

  10. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    I will also support Ubuntufax, the vmware fax appliance version of Hylafax.

    Install this under Vmware server, and allocate an external fax modem on com1 for testing.

  11. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    Why openSuse ? I don't know the differences between the distros.
  12. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    So if I ran VMWare server on a Windows Box, I could run Ubuntufax on it, and be able to use HylaFax ?
  13. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    Yes ( ubuntufax = Hylafax on Ubuntu ), but read the caveat I posted.

  14. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    Does the above apply toubuntufax ? or running other hylafax servers as vmware appliances ?



    I guess the free vmware server would be the product to use (http://www.vmware.com/products/server/ ).

    [​IMG][​IMG]details of how ubuntufax works is here





    http://www.ubuntufax.com/- home page
  15. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    I was told it applies to any virtualised fax server .. but we shall see.

  16. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

    I managed to do a working Hylafax installation from scratch ( blank hard drive ) using OpenSuse 10.0.

    Will try it again to document the process.

  17. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    Do you have some screen shots or feature lists ?

    I'm curious what it can do.

  18. Graham

    Graham Developer Staff Member

  19. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

    <h2>
    3.2 Cypheus
    </h2>




    Cypheus is another HylaFAX client for Windows and it has more features
    than WHFC. Cypheus is a commercial software and the costs depend on
    how many license you would like to acquire. For 1-9 license, the cost
    is $34 per license (as of July 17, 2003). To buy the license, go to
    their website at
    http://www.cypheus.de/frm_home_e.htm.





    Attached Files:

  20. Jason

    Jason Developer / Handyman Staff Member

Share This Page