if you want people to read your reports, don’t use ancient technology

Effective communication, not just communication

The key to effective communication is to deliver information in the most convenient format for the recipient, not the sender. Fax and post have been surpassed by faster, cheaper and better technologies, technologies that most of us already have in our multifunctionals but which few of us exploit well.

Scan-to-email

Scan-to-email can send a document to any number of people anywhere in the world at practically no cost. Your paper documents can be converted into a format that is convenient for the recipient (e.g. PDF) and sent in such a simple way that any user can do it.

In action

Scan-to-email can be a simple, three-step process:
Insert document
Select recipients
Press Send
Options can modify file format, colour mode, security, etc.

Bells and whistles

The vast majority of people only ever want the simplest scan-to-email functions but many more useful functions probably lurk under their multifunctional’s hood:
File conversion to the format your business contact wants: PDF, JPG, TIF, etc.
Encryption and password-protection to secure the document
Groups that merge numerous recipients into a single address
Sending to both email and fax recipients in a single process
Delaying sending and adding transmission receipts

The importance of address books
Your multifunctional’s address book is the heart that drives your scan-to-email capability. It must be accurate and complete.
if it’s inaccurate, staff will stop using scan-to-email because documents get ‘lost’
if it’s incomplete, staff will stop using scan-to-email because it takes too long to enter new addresses

Automatic address books

It is advisable to ask your IT Manager to configure your multifunctionals so that they automatically update their address books from your network. Most multifunctionals can do this by accessing your network logon database, known as the Windows Active Directory.
If this is not possible - or if you’re not using a Windows network - your IT Manager might also be able to setup automatic address book updates through a system called LDAP.

Keep It Simple

The KISS principle (Keep It Simple, Stupid) applies as much to scanning as it does to any other walk of life. It can dramatically change the usability of the function.
For example, you or your IT Manager could customise your multifunctional’s control panel so that a single button performs multiple tasks.

In action

Numerous scan settings can be run from a single button:
resolution
colour
conversion to PDF
send to email, fax and network locations