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With RightFAX Enterprise 5.2, the company has extended its flagship product's faxing capabilities with enhanced reporting and advanced administration tools.

I tested a beta version of RightFAX 5.2 in Network Computing's Syracuse University lab using Windows NT 4.0 (SP3) with a Brooktrout TR114+I4L fax board as the server and Windows95 as the client. I was impressed with the new canned reporting, automated fax management and easier user management. RightFAX delivers strong reporting facilities for cost management, tracking utilization and troubleshooting.

Everything You Need to Know--and More RightFAX 5.2 brings novel reporting tools to the administrator's desktop. Stored in a Microsoft Access database, the fax server data is retrieved from the fax server into the Fax Report Generator--an included Crystal Reports applet. You can look at various predefined reports, including billing reports, volume of fax pages or transmission time per user, channel usage and analysis, and ignored fax requests. Unfortunately, you'll have to update the database manually by clicking a button in the RightFAX administrator console--a process that should be automated.

The report formatting is well-thought-out: It graphically displays data for quick comparisons and shows exact numbers for detailed information. If you have Microsoft Access, or a database program that reads Access files, you can generate your own reports without having to export from Fax Report Gen erator. You also can export individual reports to various formats, including comma- and tab-delimited, Microsoft Excel, HTML and plain text.

The exported reports are fully formatted, but working around the formats when importing the data into other programs is tricky. I found that RightFAX offers only one format option that generates a file that you can easily import into a spreadsheet. The data is in tabular form but lacks headers. You'll have to manually correlate the columns to their headings.

Better Management RightFAX gives administrators the tools to maintain server disk space. Within the group configuration, you can set RightFAX's Auto-Aging feature to delete faxes automatically. I set our server to delete all incomplete received faxes within one day and read all faxes within three days. Only the fax is deleted; the record stays on the server for reporting purposes. RightFAX doesn't provide automated fax archiving, but you can route faxes to a network volume and archive them using your ex isting system.

User management is simplified with the addition of a GUI for the import-user and change-user utilities. You can make changes to users across different user groups quickly. If user groups span multiple locations, you can use the GUI to change the default printer for multiple groups. Without this capability, you would have to enter the information on the command line. You also can read or write to the user database through a comma-delimited file.

Mike Fratto can be reached at mfratto@nwc.com.