Configure an FOD mailbox

There are only three steps required to configure a mailbox to support the Fax on Demand (FOD) feature:

Enable Fax On Demand Option

To enable the FOD option, run Mailbox Administration and open the mailbox in the mailbox editor.  On the owner settings property page, make sure the Fax on Demand option is checked.  Note that the FOD feature is only available for standard and system mailboxes; no other mailbox type is allowed to do fax on demand.

When the FOD option is enabled, you will be able to access the fax on demand administration options via telephone from within the subscriber menus.  The FOD administration menu is described under Manage Fax Documents later in this section.

Assign FOD Menu Action

Fax on Demand is invoked by selecting an SDA menu action that has been assigned the Fax On Demand action.  There are two ways to do this.  First, you can create a custom SDA menu for the mailbox and edit it from the SDA property page.  Or, you can edit a global SDA template and then assign that template to the mailbox.  The figure below demonstrates the custom method.

In this example, the Fax On Demand action has been assigned to DTMF digit 1.  In addition, the SD box is checked to indicate that this is a single digit action, so there is no need to wait for additional DTMF. However, if you want callers to be able to dial extensions that start with the digit 1, leave the SD box unchecked.

If this mailbox is for Fax on Demand only (i.e., it is not taking messages), you may want to assign the Fax On Demand action to the No Input (NI) setting instead, and drop the Seconds to wait for input down to zero.  This way the caller will hear the greeting and then immediately be placed into the Fax on Demand application.  Again, this may make it hard for them to dial an extension to transfer out of this mailbox, if you want them to be able to do that.

Assign the FOD Notification Template

To schedule an outbound fax, the FaxOnDemand notification template (or a similarly-configured template) must be assigned to the mailbox.  This template is configured to act on fax on demand events and use the SendFax technique to send an outbound fax, as shown in the figure below.

The Address field is ignored and can be left as Office Extension; the SendFax routine will actually use the phone number provided by the caller.  Likewise, the Method field is only relevant for MWI notifications and so is ignored in this case.

The Initial Delay, Retry Interval and Do not exceed settings can all be configured as desired, to control how many times the system will attempt to send the fax and at what interval those attempts will occur.

To ensure that the Fax On Demand option functions at all times, the Schedule settings should be set as shown above, with all days of the week selected and the time values both set to midnight.