Scan2Email

Scan-to-Email and Email from your MFP

Today I would like to take a closer look at the UDOCX Scan-to-Email feature.  Most people, including me I guess, are familiar with the scan-to-email function that is available on nearly every multifunctional printer.

The first time I got to know the “old fashioned” scan-to-email function was some years ago when I was nervously struggling through my first day at my first job.I had been asked to scan my passport and send a copy via email to the human resources department.

I went to the big printer-copier-thingy, put my passport on the scanner (just like I did when making copies at school) and … where was the scan option?  How did scanning work anyway on this machine?  Great.  First day at the office, first hour in the office, and I already have to ask for help.
I took my passport off the scanner, went to the office manager and asked for help on how to scan a document on that machine.  The office manager accompanied me to the MFP and tried to show me how to navigate through the interface.
Unfortunately my new email address had not yet been configured by the administrator. I had a functioning email account (it worked on my desktop) but the MFP just didn’t know who I was.

Well, the office manager told me it would be best to go directly to our IT administrator so that he could configure the MFP with my account information (I would likely need to scan-to-email on a regular basis anyway).  Ok, the second person I had to ask for help on my first day at my new job.  Fortunately he was available (and willing!) to update the MFP with my account information immediately.

Half an hour later, the multifunctional scanner was configured and I could continue my task…

Scanning my passport and sending it to human resources (adding a nice email to give a good first impression).

These are the traditional (i.e., “old fashioned”) steps required just to scan and send a document via email.

1. Scan the document on the MFP.
2. Send the document to myself via the MFP.
3. Go back to the desktop.
4. Log in again on my computer.
5. Look for an email sent by printer-name@domain.com-whatever with a document named image-3435356478.pdf-whatever  this can be tricky if you’ve just scanned multiple documents (you might have to open every single PDF just to find out which is which).
6. Rename the document.
7. Save it to my hard drive.
8. Look for the email address of the person I need to send the document to.
9. Compose an email to accompany the document.
10. Attach the document.
11. Send the email.
12. Confirm that it went out.

So now let’s invite UDOCX into this scenario.  Having UDOCX on your MFP makes things so much easier – for me being a user and for everyone being an administrator (UDOCX is cloud-based so no maintenance or software installations are necessary).

We do have UDOCX on our MFP so these days I only do the following:

1. I login directly to the MFP with my normal Exchange credentials (my email address +  my password  — same as I use to log onto my desktop).
2. I touch the Scan-to-Email icon on the UDOCX display.  (How much more easy can it be?!?)
3. I can browse through my contacts (which are the same as in my Outlook address book), I can change the name of the document from the default, and I can add text for the message body of the email that explains what the document is, why I’m sending it, etc.
   All of this happens on the multifunctional.
4. I press on send. 
5. Back at the desktop and in front of my mailbox, I will see that the scanned documents have been sent by me to the contact(s) I have chosen and it can be found in my sent items just like any other email.

UDOCX makes an MFP more efficient.  UDOCX makes the MFP more like a desktop (just like we see happening with smart phones).  UDOCX makes an MFP smart. 

Try it yourself and download Free Trial!