NECS Integrates Biscom SFT Server with Canon ImageRUNNER Advance!

I spent last Friday afternoon at Biscom’s headquarters working with their Systems Engineers. My initial goal was to set up the Canon ImageRUNNER Advance MFD that we had loan them to integrate with their Bisocm Fax Server. We used UniFLOW to accomplish this integration. When it comes to integrating Fax Servers with UniFLOW “I have stood on the shoulder’s of giants!” Men like Erick Miller (Ray Morgan) and Joe Lucas (NTware) who pioneered UniFLOW \ Fax Server integration.

We got the Canon IR-Adv MFD set up so that it would send emails through their email server, but when an end user would type in JUST a fax number where the email usually goes the UniFLOW system was smart enough to route it directly to the Fax Server, bypassing the email server altogether.  Since the end user was “logged in” at the Canon IR-Adv MFD, Uniflow knew the email address of the logged in user. This allowed the Fax Server to show that the Fax came from them, and the fax sent receipt would also show up in their email. I had just set up this same functionality at a private school in the morning, So it only took me all of about 30 minutes to do at Biscom.

We had blocked off the entire afternoon so we had some time to kill. I got to talking with the Biscom Engineers about also setting up the Canon IR-ADV MFD to send emails via their Secure File Transfer Server. There wasn’t an easy trigger (like a fax number) to allow the UniFLOW Server to differentiate a normal Scan to Email from a Secure Scan to email. So I set up a different button on the Canon (see picture above) to ALWAYS send to the Secure File Transfer Server. It worked great!!!

Think about what this means to an office. We can set up a single Canon ImageRUNNER-Advance MFD to Scan and send a file via

1. Scan to Email

2. Scan to Fax Server

3. Scan to Secure File Transfer

The first two can be done by the standard Canon Universal Send when we enhance it with UniFLOW. The third option can be done by either a separate MEAP Button, or I am confident we will also be able to set it up via a UniFLOW Advanced Scanning Workflow Button (we are still working on this).

In practice this means that the average end user can send an email to their own email (Scan to myself) or their Home Directory (Scan to MyFolder) or someone else in their company (Via an LDAP Address Book tied to their Active Directory). Most corporate email servers are set up to allow users to Scan “to” the server but not allow them to scan “through” the email server to an outside email address. This is often done for security reasons. Since Our Canon ImageRUNNER-Advance is set up to allow Ad-Hoc Secure File Transfer via the Biscom SFT Server, when an End User needs to email a file outside of the organization they choose the Biscom SFT button which will send a link to the documents via email, but the recipient needs to login to the Biscom Secure File Transfer Server to actually download the files.

Finally an End Users can send a Fax by simply typing the Fax # or selecting a Fax # from the Address book and sending it as if it were an email. Giving them the simplicity of sending a fax from the MFD, but also giving them all the benefits of a Fax Server, like fax receipts being emailed back to their personal email account, and improved reporting, allowing them to prove they sent a particular fax two months ago. Limited reporting capabilities is one of the greatest limitations of faxing from an MFD or stand alone faxes.

This new Canon \ UniFLOW \ Biscom integration will empower End Users to deliver documents inside or outside their organization in the most secure manner possible. That will make both end users and the CSO happy, Not an easy task to do!

That’s my $0.02

Vince McHugh

vince.mchugh@yahoo.com