Fax Notification via Message Exchange Service
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In organizations sharing a common fax number across departments, identifying the intended recipient of a received fax document is challenging, leading to difficulties in managing and tracking the progress of operations, often resulting in human errors.
Innovation Solution
An information processing apparatus that extracts contact information associated with the sender's telephone number and posts a digitized fax document to a message exchange service, enabling notification of intended recipients through a group chat, thereby facilitating the management of fax document progress.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a common fax number is shared across multiple departments or members, then the fax system can be universally accessed, but it becomes difficult to identify the intended recipient of a received fax document
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a message exchange service as an intermediary between the fax reception system and the recipients. When a fax is received, the system posts a notification message to the message exchange service that includes information about the received fax and potential recipients. This intermediary service enables identification and routing of faxes to specific departments or members without requiring each to have a separate fax number, thus resolving the contradiction between universal access and recipient identification.
2Measurement precision
If manual identification of fax recipients is performed by referring to address information, then recipient identification is possible, but the process requires trial and error and is time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by automatically posting notification messages to the message exchange service immediately when a fax is received. The notification includes relevant information such as sender details, fax content summary, and potential recipient information. This preliminary notification enables recipients to proactively identify and claim their intended faxes without manual trial and error, significantly reducing identification time and improving accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The message exchange service provides feedback mechanisms that allow recipients to respond to fax notifications. The system can track which recipients have been notified, which have claimed their faxes, and which require further clarification. This feedback loop enables real-time monitoring of operation progress and allows the system to adapt by sending additional notifications or routing corrections, thereby eliminating time loss and improving identification precision.
3Device complexity
If fax documents are processed manually without automated notification, then system complexity is low, but the progress of operations cannot be grasped or managed effectively
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies universality by designing a message exchange service that serves multiple functions: it notifies recipients of received faxes, tracks operation progress, provides a communication channel for clarification, and maintains a record of fax routing decisions. This single multi-functional system replaces what would otherwise require separate manual processes for notification, tracking, and communication, thereby achieving improved operation visibility without proportionally increasing system complexity.
Data Source
AI summary
An information processing apparatus includes a processor configured to: extract, if a facsimile document is received, information indicating a contact associated in advance with a telephone number of a person who has transmitted the facsimile document; and perform control for posting an electronic document, which is obtained by digitizing the facsimile document, to a message exchange service including the contact as a member while determining the contact as a notification target of the electronic document.