Synchronizing Multiple Groups of Users into RightFax

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I remember a few years ago, a student in New Zealand asked me if I could help them with a bizarre request. They needed to have several groups of users in the organization with different fax settings. Now that’s not all that weird on its own, but they wanted all those settings to apply automatically as soon as a new employee started working at the company. Since then, I received similar questions from students around Asia, Europe and every where else I deliver trainings. It’s a common request and it seems that many people don’t know that what they are asking is a built in feature of RightFax.

The magic of that functionality happens in the module called the Captaris Sync Module.  Its really pretty easy to set up and once initially configured, it just works without much additional involvement. The step that most people don’t realize is possible is that you can create multiple groups of synchronized users.

Before I show you how to set this up, let me show you a portion of my Active Directory. In the screenshot on the left, you can see an organizational unit I created call AllUsers. Within that OU, I have other OUs for It, Marketing, and Sales. Each of those OUs have a couple a users defined. What I want to do is set up synchronization so that the users in each OU get a different cover sheet, general fax number, and other settings.

Back on my RightFax server, I have double-clicked on the Sync Module in my list of services in Enterprise Fax Manager. That brings up the configuration dialog shown here. When you click the Sources & Destinations button, you can enter each place you want to grab users from, and where you want them to go to. At first it seems that this has a bit of unnecessary overhead, since it may seem obvious that you want to bring users from AD to Fax Server. But the fact that you have to specify this allows you to create multiple synchronization groups.

I’ll create two sources and two destinations, entering a name Sales and Marketing for each pair. The result can be seen in the Sync Sources and Destinations window shown on the left. When you create these, you’ll see that you can also create LDAP sources. LDAP, in case you aren’t familiar with it, is an industry standard directory server technology that many companies have implemented. In fact, Active Directory is also an LDAP server, but as with most standards, they look better on paper than in real life. Although it’s a ‘standard’, most LDAP providers don’t actually agree on how to implement the technology. The flavor of LDAP that we are tuned to out of the box is Lotus Notes LDAP, but its easy to tweak that if you are familiar with LDAP.

Once you have your sources defined, you create a mapping that tells the Sync Module which source and destination to use together. I’ll link the two Marketing items together, as well as the two Sales items. Click on Browse to show the different types of mappings we support out of the box. To tweak one of the mappings, you can use a text editor to modify the XSL file. There is an option on that dialog to set your schedule. For this environment, I am choosing Continuously. You should experiment in your environment to see what works best for you. The current synchronization tool is much more efficient than previous versions, but depending on the hardware used, number of users in your AD, and other factors, you may have to limit your schedule a bit. After you add your two pairs of mappings, you’ll see them listed under mappings and you’ll see two new tabs for each pair.

When I go to the AD – Marketing tab, I can choose which users I want to bring over. I want to make sure I specify that only the Marketing OU is going to be synched. In my AD, I have 2 users per OU, but in a real-world OU, its not unusual to have hundreds or maybe thousands of users in an OU. Lets say that you have 100 users in Marketing. Half of the users are on Exchange 2010, and the other half are Lotus Notes clients. You could have a group called Exchange users, then choose to include that group or exclude it. If you choose to Include or Exclude groups, make sure that the groups have the users as direct members. We won’t see users that are members of sub-groups.

Now switch to the corresponding RF tab, and fill in the Rightfax server to add users to. You also want to an administrator to use to create the new users. On the Users tab under RF-Marketing is where the real magic is configured. When you create users in EFM, they will be created based on the Default user template. But in the sync module, they can be created based on any user you choose. I created a Marketing Default as well as a Sales Default. Each of these default users have different cover sheets defined as well as other settings such as permissions.

Now click OK and within a few seconds, I see new users showing up in EFM. If you go to edit those users, you will find the cover sheet and other settings have all been configured as you expected.

I don’t know of a limit to the number of pairs you can have in this tool but you probably won’t reach it. This can be a very useful tool to use in many different implementations of RightFax and I look forward to hearing about how you are using it at your company.

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