Why Educational Institutions Should Move Their Faxing Practices to the Cloud?

As an educational institution, you are under constant scrutiny to innovate technologically to foster an optimal learning environment for your students. Matched with the unyielding pressure to adhere to government regulations, it can be challenging to streamline your processes to optimize efficiency without guidance.

Universities, schools, and other academic organizations are advanced in areas such as campus-wide wifi access and student portals and emails, yet most of these institutions have not seriously incorporated newer faxing technologies, which have been around for years, and could significantly aid in admin practices.

Fax.Plus is the leading online fax service that helps educational institutes and school districts to send and receive faxes easily and securely while being compliant with strict data residency requirements and regulations.

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How does Fax.Plus help school districts to migrate to a cloud-based fax solution?

Despite the rise in popularity of email in the last two decades, faxing remains the most commonly used method for exchanging important information in the field of education. Your institution deals with sensitive files daily, from student records, transcripts, applications, financial information, to medical health records. The needs tethered to faxing have not changed, however, cloud services have been introduced and they can guarantee higher security without the worries of using temperamental fax machinery.

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Security

If you analyze your current faxing processes you’ll see that documents sent to you are at constant risk. They could be left in the printing tray unattended, someone could accidentally pick them up, or they could end up in the hands of someone they are not intended for.

At its core, cloud faxing is a more secure method than analog faxing. You may wonder how that can be when the internet is flooding with words like hacker and privacy breaches. Fax.Plus has developed a multifaceted solution to protect your data, including where it is stored, encryption standards, secure authentication processes for access to accounts, and an infrastructure that is regularly checked by our security team.

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Data Residency

For starters, all of our customers’ fax files are stored in Swiss data centers that operate from locations conforming to the most restrictive security standards (ISO 27001) and are part of the Cloud Security Alliance (CSA).

With the Enterprise plan, you can easily move your fully encrypted faxed documents in between data centers located in various locations without experiencing any service interruption and address regional and country-specific data privacy and residency requirements. If you have strict compliance requirements not to store faxes on the cloud, we can even have all of your files moved fully encrypted to your own local S3 compatible storage.

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Data Encryption

Fax files at rest are encrypted using 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

To ensure the security of data transmitted between Fax.Plus apps (currently mobile, API, or web) and our servers, Fax.Plus employs Transport Layer Security (TLS). TLS is an advanced encryption protocol that has evolved from its predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). This protocol establishes a secure connection creating a protected tunnel safeguarded by Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption with a minimum bit length of 128 bits or higher.

Fax.Plus supports TLS 1.3, which is faster and more secure than TLS 1.2, and adds an additional layer of privacy to an encrypted period, making certain that the two endpoints are the only ones capable of decrypting the traffic.

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Activate Advanced Security Measures for HIPAA Compliance

For even stricter privacy and compliance requirements,Fax.Plus is HIPAA-compliant. You can sign a Business Associate Agreement with us and we will activate advanced security controls on your account (https://www.alohi.com/trust/compliance/hipaa).

Once activated, none of your files will leave our platform ensuring the highest degree of security from third-party software and services. This can be of particular use to the nurses and other medical offices in your schools and campuses, as it will ensure that the Private Health Information (PHI) of your students is protected.

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Secure Authentication Process

Fax.Plus offers multiple methods for ensuring that each member’s account is securely accessed. The way that our 2FA system functions is through an authentication application that you can download on your device, which will generate codes. These codes are to be used as a second layer of security after your username and password.

For our Enterprise plan users, we go a step further, offering Single Sign On (SSO), which can be incredibly beneficial for your educational institution. SSO is an authentication process that allows you to access multiple networks and applications through one set of login credentials.

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Streamlined Processes

Moving on towards the practical applications of cloud faxing to your educational institution: It’s simply easier. Analog faxing requires teachers, administrators, and other faculty members to displace themselves to send faxes, wait on IT to troubleshoot issues, and not have enough machines to meet everyone’s needs.

Fax.Plus offers a seamless workflow and heightened efficiency with:

• Mobile & web applications that faculty members can use to send faxes from anywhere on campus, from within their lecture halls or classrooms.
• Easy integrations into Google, Microsoft, Slack, and Zapier, as well as API integration into the institutions’ software systems.
• The ability to send and receive faxes from email.
• Detailed CSV logs of previously exchanged faxes that can be downloaded from the Faxes tab with the Premium, Business and Enterprise plans. This is most beneficial for keeping track of what information has been exchanged.
• Multiple fax lines can be set up for different faculty departments ensuring that information is correctly filtered and sent to the appropriate educators.
• Scheduled faxing to ensure that important documents are sent out to students, parents, and others in a timely fashion.

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Efficient Use of Resources

Finally, the cost of running any educational facility is incredibly high and it can sometimes be difficult to sit and mull over the costs of the systems you employ. Cloud faxing can eliminate the cost of installing fax machines, repairs, ink, and paper, and even reduce IT expenditure.

We offer a cost-efficient way of handling your faxing needs with complete transparency on incurred costs and the ability to pick and choose plans that best meet your needs. We even offer custom high-volume plans for your specific needs.

If you have an influx of faxes in the early stages of the academic year due to applications and a heavy outflow of faxes when transcripts are sent out at the end of the year, we can help you find an effective solution there as well.

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Conclusion

Simply put, cloud faxing would significantly reduce redundancies in your administrative processes whilst promising that security and data protection is at the forefront of your operations. To make your transition easier, our support team is always available to answer your questions (email).