Shawn Gordon writes:

> I don't care what hardware or software it's using, but I am looking for
>  a way to integrate this into our enterprise fax server for requesting
>  forms and documents, possibly reports.
>
>  Anyone have to deal with this or have any suggestions?

Shawn,

Because you reviewed QueryCalc for Interact a few years back (again thanks
for the kind words; I put your final check is in the mail just yesterday),
I'll embarass you and post my reply pubicly. Putting an interactive
telephone/faxback solution on the HP3000 is surprisingly simple. A good
portion of the answer is using something like QueryCalc. Be warned that you
are hereby and forever after severely chastised for not thinking of this
yourself :-).

All kidding aside, one of our customers, The Order Fulfillment Group (TOFG)
of Indianapolis, IN, did exactly this a few years ago and had it up and
running almost immediately. TOFG runs a 927 as an order fulfillment group,
exactly as their name suggests. Their largest customer is RCA/Thompson. When
you fill out a warranty card for an RCA product, you send it to TOFG. They
then enter that information into the computer. Each night, they automatically
run a QueryCalc report in batch to accumulate the nightly, weekly, monthly
and quarterly information and fax that report to RCA, without any human
intervention.

Because QueryCalc uses PostScript as its primary printing language -- and
because PostScript fax printers allow a very simple mechanism to redirect
PostScript output that would have otherwise been intended for a PS printer to
a remote fax machine -- creating elaborate graphical reports (with logos,
lines, boxes, and graphs) that can be transmitted to any fax receiver
anywhere in the world, rather than a local printer, is surprisingly simple.
And because TOFG had been doing this part of the faxback solution for some
time, creating the telephone interface was only a small additional step.

The client for which TOFG created their faxback solution is very much like
Amway and Tupperware in that they use a hierarchy of distributors who work
out of their homes. It is my understanding that TOFG unfortunately no longer
uses the faxback solution because their relationship with their client has
come to an end. However, while the system was up and running, it seemed to
work very well. The only other part of the solution necessary of course is
the interactive telephone device. That was provided by Frank Solutions. I
gather it was a small PC-like device that connected to the HP3000 as a simple
serial terminal at one end and a telephone line at the other.

Once the remote user's touchphone-entered information was complete, the Frank
Solutions device would cause that information to be written to a simple flat
file and stream a QueryCalc job. QueryCalc would then use that parametric
information to extract the user's sales and profit information as a detail
list report, simultaneously merging it with a good-looking form that TOFG
created, and print it to a PostScript fax printer (an Apple LaserWriter 360
with fax option), connected as a simple termtype 18 printer to a DTC.

The remote user's fax machine would generally ring within 60 seconds after
the user had completed his entries and the report would be in his or her
hands in one or two additional minutes. Most of that delay was simply
inherent to the properties of the telephone and fax.

This general solution works so extremely well on an HP3000 that it's a shame
that more people aren't using it -- but there simply doesn't seem to be the
demand out there to sustain a vendor who must supply the necessary equipment.
Fax is clearly a dying information distribution mechanism (at least in the
minds of the cognosceti), but it nonetheless remains a far more pervasive
medium within most businesses than the internet -- and is likely to remain
that way for another five to eight years.

Wirt Atmar