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Werkzeuge für das Arcom-System von Michael Ziegler Software

Arcom ist eine sehr umfangreiche Software für den Versand von Einzel- und Serienfaxen, aber es gibt nur wenige Werkzeuge, um dieses System vom PC aus einfach zu bedienen. Sie wird entwickelt von Arel aus Israel.

Vorteile beim Nutzen eines solchen Fax-Mehrwertdienstes sind:

• Eigenes Fax frei und keine Personal Arbeitszeiten.
• Empfänger werden sehr schnell, z.T. gleichzeitig beliefert.
• Kein Ärger mit Wahlwiederholung - Nur das Ergebnis-Journal bekommt man zurück.
• Zeitversetztes Senden im Spartarif.
• Bei weiten Entfernungen oder ins Ausland billiger, da die meisten Mehrwertdienst-Anbieter ein eigenes Netz (evtl. weltweit) haben und so nur über eine kurze Stecke bis zum Empfänger auf öffentliche Netze zurückgreifen müssen.

Ich habe eine Reihe von Hilfsmitteln geschrieben, mit denen das Arcom System leichter zu handhaben ist. Entwickelt habe ich diese Programme für debis ACS, die aber leider kein eigenes Netz hatten und somit nicht rentabel genug arbeiten konnten. Da sonst in Deutschland das Arcom-System nicht eingesetzt wird und ich meine Software auch anderen anbieten möchte sind die folgenden Erläuterungen der Programme in Englisch gehalten.

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Tools for the Arcom-System by Michael Ziegler Software

The fax mail system by Arel is very voluminous, but has only a few tools to handle it with a PC. I designed some programmes to solve this gap.

I have developed two classes of programmes: customer side programmes and Arcom tools.

RemCluUpd, FaxAss, AdrMgr, , ,

The customer have to be able to send fax-destinations and the fax-document to the Arcom System, if possible without any work of the service department.

The fax-destinations are grouped together in clusters. A particular address can be placed in more than one cluster. Every fax-destination must have a fax-number. Optionally it may have four attention lines (at the top of the page) or eight personalized fields (can be positioned freely on the page) and an alternative fax-number with an additional attention line. The normal way of handling the clusters stored in the Arcom system is, to delete the cluster and then create it again with the new entries. «Remote Cluster Update» reads the export with the attention lines and the fax numbers of the customer database and send them by modem to a BBS running in the service department.

There are an other type of clusters: the one-time-cluster (or temporary cluster). They are used one time with one fax-message and then they can be deleted again. They need no support and no care. My «Fax Assistant» handles this process by sending the fax destinations and the document together to the BBS.

The attention lines have to be designed by a database system. If for example the first attention line reads «To Mr. Mike Miller», this line consists of the «To», title, first and last name. Since not everybody is able to programme their database, I have developed the «Address Manager», into which you only write the keywords «To #title #name1 #name2». All attention lines in the whole cluster will then be created automatically.

If your customer wants to send a message to more than one cluster, some destinations would received the same message two or even more times. With the help of the «Address Manager» and a few mouse clicks - you will be able to create a one time cluster and combine several permanent clusters while eliminating the doubles.

The «Address Manager» handles not only the fax numbers and all clusters, saved are the postal address, phone numbers, keywords, birthday, refresh date and notices, too. So you can use this comfortable programme to handle all your addresses.

The fax-document can be created with any postscript printer driver and printed the document not to the printer itself but into a file. This file would then be send to the BBS with «Fax Assistant» or «Address Manager».

The e-mails to the BBS are periodically processed by «AutoFax» and the mails with fax destinations and fax documents where automatically converted and sent to the Arcom system.

This programme works together with «billing statistics». This is a big database with all fax-messages off all customers and departments. In this database you collected all their activity every day, so that there are some millions of records saved. You can compute a) by customer: their activity, b) by time: your system-balance, c) by fax-nr: the distribution of the numbers in the area, d) by fax on demand calls.
The Arcom system is able to create an upload-file of one cluster. The program can send this upload-command and then reads the result into a database. So you have a comfortable way to read the clusters stored on the VAX.

For use in your office: «asc2cld», named «ascii to c.l.d.». The tool reads text files then analyse the fields and convert and copy them to the gate of the Arcom system.

Additional features are:

• Entries of customer cluster, reference, delay message, until delivery, header, footer, cover page.
• Handling of four Attention Lines and up to eight personalized fields.
• Automatic deletion of nonnumerical signs in the fax number and the prefix.
• Testing of large fields and nonexisting fax numbers.
• Handles permanent cluster and one time cluster.
• Save all options for every customer, so you can produce fax messages in a few seconds.
• Very fast: about thousand records per minute.

There is a evaluation copy available. Klick here for download the version. The only restriction is the number of records converted.

If your are interested in the software, contact me by e-mail.

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