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 ...
Note that Hylafax will be part of our premium product. Express users should stick to the snappyfax solution.
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?
[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.
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.
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.
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.
So if I ran VMWare server on a Windows Box, I could run Ubuntufax on it, and be able to use HylaFax ?
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/ ). details of how ubuntufax works is here http://www.ubuntufax.com/- home page
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.
For hylafax, see http://www.hylafax.org/content/Documentation So far the trickiest thing is to find a working NIC that Suse recognizes. Many of the NICs I had lying around were either not working, or, not recognized.
<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.